Michael MATT

AVALANCHE SURVIVOR
At the age of eight in 2001, he was fully buried in an avalanche while skiing with his father. Only his boot was sticking out of the snow. (krone.at, 14 Nov 2016)

CALL FROM HIS BROTHER
His older brother and 2014 Olympic slalom champion Mario called him between the first and second runs of slalom during the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games. "(Mario) called me after the first run. It’s not a good sign when he calls me, it’s always when I am slow in the first run. But it helped. He said, ‘It didn’t look good, didn’t look smooth’. It’s not the way I can ski so we changed it a little bit.” (reuters.com, 22 Feb 2018)

STRONG AUSTRIAN SLALOM TEAM
Teamwork makes the dream work. "With us in the team, the mood is very good. If you've been to the same school with your teammates since four years together, then you've already experienced a lot together. That connects you, of course. In addition, I've always had the same coaches since I joined the World Cup team. This has been the case for five seasons; so you know what makes everyone tick and that is very important." (skiweltcup.tv, 24 Jul 2019)

© Data by Sports Data Warehouse

OLYMPIC WINTER GAMES
In his Olympic debut at the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games, he won bronze in slalom giving his family a full set of Olympic medals (after his brothers' 2014 gold and 2010 silver). A little mistake on his second run convinced him that he was not going to finish on the podium despite being at the top of the leaderboard and he hid away from the television screens as his rivals followed him down the slope. “I couldn’t even watch anyone coming after me. I was looking at the ground and anywhere else.” (reuters.com, 22 Feb 2018)

Was a member of the Austrian team that won silver in the 2018 team parallel and won gold at Beijing 2022.

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
Competed in four consecutive World Championships (2015-21) winning silver in slalom in 2019 at Are and helped Austria win silver in the team parallel.

At three Junior World Championships (2012-14), his best finish of eighth was in 2014 in the super combined at Jasna.

WORLD CUP
Had his first podium (second in 2016 in Levi) three years to the month at the same venue where he had his World Cup debut in 2013 in slalom, where his brother Mario was second.