Bernard Loer new German SBX Head Coach

Bernard Loer will take over the role as new SBX Head Coach of Snowboard Germany beginning of August as Gernot Raitmair will step back from duty end of July after being responsible for the team for the last 14 years.

In addition, the whole snowboard cross division gets re-structured including several position changes.

“By re-structuring our snowboard cross division we are hoping to achieve sustainable success,” explains Sporting Director Stefan Knirsch.

“Bernard Loer is a superb snowboarder and will take over the steering wheel since he has demonstrated in the past years with several medals at junior world championships that he can lead riders to success,” the federation's CEO explained further on.

Loer, who will be assisted by former World Cup racer David Speiser, is looking forward to his new tasks:

“I'm honoured that Snowboard Germany is placing its trust in me. We have a big team with a lot of potential which consists of experienced riders as well as up-and-coming talents.”

While the qualified coach is also hoping to bring up more and more young guns to the top level of the sport, he also knows of the increased responsibility:

“Of course I want to keep on developing the young riders as I did in the past. But we also have to form a squad which is able to solidly perform on the World Cup tour in the near term and which is competitive.

With the next Olympics around the corner, it's also obvious that we have to qualify as many riders as possible for it while the are the 2022 Olympic Winter Games are clearly our longterm goal.”

While Loer is facing a lot of new tasks, he won't be thrown in at the deep end as he will be able to capitalize on the work of his predecessor.

“Gernot Raitmair has been a formative part and face of our federation for a very long time. We would like to thank for his commitment over the past 14 years. We are losing an extremely good coach and wish him all the best for his future,” Snowboard Germany President Prof. Hanns-Michael Hoelz dignified Raitmair.

The Austrian had been responsible for the team at three Olympic Winter Games as well as seven world championships.

He has been able to celebrate a total of three German World Cup wins (Michael Layer 2004, Konstantin Schad 2012 and Paul Berg 2014) as well as ten more top-3 results. In addition, there was also a Team SBX World Cup win in Montafon, Austria (Schad and Berg 2013) as well as three Bronze medallist at X-Games (Speiser and Schad twice).

“It's been a great and exiting time. When I started my job, there was almost nothing. I had the opportunity to build up and animate a whole division. I'm very grateful for this opportunity,” Raitmair said.

“However, at the end of last season, I was at a point where it was better to step back as the season physically forced me on my knees. As the federation was also thinking about what to change to improve, we then decided that it would be best if I would retire.”