Winter sports: portraits of the favourites for Vancouver 2010

Sigi Grabner

Since 15 years, Sigi Grabner has been part of the world-class - ages in the still young sport of snowboarding. In the course of his long career, the 34-year old alpine racer has collected countless titles: he is a five-time European Champion of the ISF, he won the ISF Tour three times, he was "Lord of the Board" twice and "Vienna Soul Man" twice. He was the world champion of the FIS in 2003 and took the FIS overall world cup in 2004 and 2009. At the parallel giant slalom at the Olympic Winter Games Torino 2006, he took the bronze medal. And there is no prospect of an end to this winning streak - no other snowboarder has captured so many podiums as the Carinthian. Apart from snowboarding, Grabner is a multi-talented sportsman who loves climbing, parachuting, paragliding, road biking and mountain biking. In 2005, Grabner founded his own snowboard brand called "SG Snowboards". Since 2000, the man with the longest pigtail and the longest career in the alpine snowboarding universe lives in Andorra. Riding his 16^th world cup season, Grabner keeps one thing in mind: at his fourth Olympic Games, he wants to get an Olympic medal, just like at Torino 2006!

Benjamin Karl (AUT)

Benjamin started snowboarding at the age of 15 and five years later, in 2005, he was junior world champion. That same year also saw him crowned Austrian Champion and overall winner of the Europacup. His successes continued as he became World Cup overall winner in both 2007 and 2008.

Benjamin`s triumph in 2008 was all the more remarkable because he had to miss the last four events of the season due to a broken leg. But he still emerged victorious finishing 190 points ahead of his closest rival. His next greatest challenge is winning gold at the next Winter Olympics and defending his world championship title. Nothing, it seems, not even broken bones, can stop this guy.