“"He has proved that sometimes all the hard work and talent in the world will fall short of hard work and talent backed by funding," Wiencke said. Wild won gold last month in the final parallel slalom event of the 2014 World Cup tour. A gold medal in Sochi could earn Wild a 300,000-euro award from Russia. He has two chances to medal, on Wednesday and Saturday. Asked if it would be bittersweet to win for Russia, Wild says, "The (Russians)—they are the only reason I'm still riding." ”
