At my age, you need to verify that everything is fine. I put a lot of pressure on my body, and I feel sometimes pain in my back and in my knees, so I have to be sure that I can keep on training hard before going on.
When you have won everything in your career, what's left? Why go on?
I sat down with my trainers to check my past seasons and to see what could be done to keep me motivated and in good shape. I had to find a new motivation, a new momentum.
When I was a child, all I wanted was to enter the Austrian team and to compete on the World Cup tour. I had to fight hard to reach this. I wanted badly to win each race.
My attitude on skis is different now. I have learned to put less pressure on myself and on the edges of my skis when I'm racing, to be keep myself more under control.
I lost races because I wanted too much to win them in beating my rivals.
I planned to stop in 2002 after the Salt Lake City Olympics. I felt able to remain competitive another four years, and I wanted to stop while I'm still at the top.
I still have many goals left, especially the Overall World Cup standings.
I have a strong lead so far, and I would be proud to win it because it remains the summit for a skier. I also aim to collect several smaller crystal trophies at Are, especially the GS Cup.
I still have more to fight for in the coming years.
I like to win. If I lose, I'm not very happy.
I trained well this week but I think it will take some time until I recover my best rhythm in this specialty.
Franz Klammer was my great idol in my younger years.
I'm happy to belong to this group of top champions having excelled here.
The crowd is wonderful. There is always a superb atmosphere in the finish area. It's good for the World Cup. I missed it a lot when I had to rest and it's so nice to be back here.
It's good to ski for fun, but I still want to win races as often as possible.
If I remain healthy, I can win more races, but I don't think so much about setting new records. I'm already proud to have become the leading Austrian World Cup racer.
It was necessary to organize my career to remain at the top level until Salt Lake City.
It's funny to have become an elegant skier now. But my drive is still the same.
It was really tough to race the GS a day after the downhill, but that's over now. I'm looking forward for the rest of the season which is also quite interesting.
One victory more or less doesn't make the difference for me now.
As the time goes by, you change, your learn new things, your attitude is different. For the moment, I'm still enjoying ski racing so much that it would be difficult for me to think about ending my career.
For the moment, the snow is quite wet and soft. If it was hard or icy, it would be a perfect downhill for my style, because I could fight even harder.
Being famous hasn't made my life any easier. Every minute I'm dealing with the baby-sitters is one more minute I'm not training.
