Gala evening on Thursday evening in Vienna to celebrate the best Austrian athletes of the 2020/2021 season: the sprinter Vincent Kriechmayr received the prestigious “Niki” award as “Austrian Sportsman of the Year”.

Long applauded Vincent received the award thanks to the excellent results of last winter, where he imposed himself in the superg ranking by winning the specialty cup, and where he won two gold medals at the world championships in Cortina in February, finishing ahead of both superg and downhill.

“It is a great honor for me to win this award – said Vincent – Austria might not be the biggest country, but it has an incredible number of excellent athletes. If you see how many sports legends are sitting in the audience today, you realize it and you can only thank them. “

Kriechmayr succeeds King Hirscher, capable of winning the award 6 times, including 5 in a row.

The jury, made up of a small number of Austrian journalists, awarded the prize for “sportswoman of the year” to cyclist Anna Kiesernhofer, who won a gold medal at the Olympic Games in Tokyo this summer at the road test, beating in the final choice the other candidates Lisa Hauser and Katharina Liensberger.