Zipflbob World Championship 2010 Flachau
In 2010, the world elite of the Zipflbob sport met in Flachau to hold the World Championships in the Zipflbob sport.
With around 200 participants, it was a gigantic starting field and therefore fierce competition between the riders. For the first time, the Zipflbob scene organized and held the official Zipflbob World Championships. Although Zipflbob is not yet officially recognized as a sport, this is soon to change if the Zipflbob World Federation has its way. They are even aiming to take part in the Olympic Games.
Zipflbob racers will be battling it out for the best time on the 1,000-metre-long downhill course. The entire who’s who of the scene will be taking part in the first world championship. The participants include Reinhard Öttl from Kirchberg in Tyrol, who won the World Series last year and the first race of the season this year, and the reigning European champion Paul Steinbach from Kitzbühel.
The races are held exclusively on the original mini bob, which all participants have been using since childhood and have thus been born into the Zipflbob sport.
Of course, there are also international participants at the World Championships, which shows how widespread this sport has become outside of the Alpine region. The mini bob is now also called the “Zipflbob” in other countries and is a breath of fresh air in winter sports – despite having been around since 1976.
Anyone who thinks that the mini bob is just a children’s toy has never had a conversation with Zipflbob racers such as Frederik Eiter. In April, the professional racer raced down the Pitztal Glacier at a speedy 157.34 km/h with the Zipflracer, thus renewing the world record he had previously set with the original mini bob – since then, Eiter has held the world speed record in the Zipflbob downhill.
The women are also strongly represented at the World Championships and are in no way inferior to the men. Alexandra Zisser and Sonja Vorhofer (known from the Zipflbob World Series) are the favorites here.
