Gaëtan Llorach first started in Geilo in 1991 at a junior world championship and just barely missed a medal as fourth in the Super-G . At his second JWM participation in Maribor he had to be content with a seventh place in the giant slalom as the top result. He first attracted attention in March 1993 when he won two gold medals in downhill and combined at his third JWM in Colere . In the slalom , he secured the silver medal just behind Chip Knight . He also achieved top results in super-G and giant slalom with ranks five and six.
World Cup and Injuries
On January 29, 1994, the 20-year-old all-round talent made his World Cup debut in the Downhill from Chamonix . After his first full European Cup and World Cup season , in which he earned his first World Cup points with a twelfth place in the Lauberhorn combination , his ascent was suddenly stopped. He suffered a broken thigh and was not able to compete again until January 1997 after a quadriceps injury the following season. Towards the end of the season he crowned his comeback with his first national title in combination. He was able to repeat this success in 1999 and 2002. In the coming seasons he celebrated three European Cup victories, but could not build on his junior successes in the World Cup. After further injuries to the shoulder blades and collarbone , he was released from the French association in 1999.
Comeback and end of career
The sports soldier with the rank of Caporal-Chef did not think of resigning and fought his way back into the squad on his own. In December 2000, he surprisingly finished sixth in the slalom of Madonna di Campiglio and thus qualified for the world championship in St. Anton . There he did not get past a 26th place. In the 2001/02 season he made three points and qualified with fifth place in the combination of Wengen for the Olympic Games in Salt Lake City , where he was eliminated in the first round of the combination slalom. He achieved his best World Cup result on January 19, 2003, when he - again in Wengen - came fourth. Due to the small number of participants, however, he was almost eleven seconds behind winner Kjetil André Aamodt . At the World Championships in St. Moritz , with a ninth combined rank , he achieved by far the best result in a major event.
In the following winters Llorach fought in the World Cup with non-qualifications and failures. It was not until January 2007 that he gave a sign of life with a 22nd slalom rank in Kitzbühel , his third point win on the Ganslernhang . A month later he finished 16th again in Garmisch-Partenkirchen . Following the French championships in 2007 in Les Arcs , he ended his career at the age of 33. He contested a total of 80 World Cup and 105 European Cup races.
France
