Christina Riegel, who grew up in Burgenland , attended the Stams ski school in Tyrol after completing secondary school . She made her first international appearance at the Junior World Championships in 1989 in Aleyska , where she finished sixth in the giant slalom and eighth in the Super-G. In the same year she became Austrian junior champion in combination. In the European Cup she achieved seventh place in the Super-G classification in the 1989/90 season , two years later she came tenth overall in this discipline. Nevertheless, Riegel concentrated more and more on the slalom. The then 21-year-old finally made her breakthrough in this discipline in the winter of 1992/93. In the European Cup , she won the slalom classification with a victory in the first slalom in Rogla and two second places in the second slalom in Rogla and in Špindlerův Mlýn and came second in the overall classification behind the Swede Kristina Andersson . In addition, she became Austrian champion in slalom. But she showed her greatest performance at the World Cup final in Åre on March 28, 1992, when she surprisingly reached third place in the slalom after she was even in the lead in the first run.
Riegel was never able to repeat this success, however, because after that she mostly failed, also because of many failures, in qualifying for the second round. So she only won World Cup points once again with 19th place in the slalom in Morzine on January 6, 1994. Even in the European Cup, she often remained without results, only with a fourth place in the giant slalom in Abetone in March 1995 she showed her potential again. Due to the lack of World Cup results, however, she lost her place in the squad of the Austrian Ski Association after the 1994/95 season , which is why she ended her career at the age of almost 24.
Austria