Austria miss out on the 2026 Olympics after defeat to Kaza­khstan

"It is very hard to find the right words at the moment. Unfortunately, we have failed to achieve our Olympic goal," said Dominic Zwerger, whose disappointment, like that of the entire team, was immense after the bitter 1:2 defeat to Kazakhstan. Austria were clearly superior against the world No. 12. The 45 to 20 shot count also clearly underlined that dominance.

The Red-White-Red players suffered an early setback right at the start of the game. Ali Wukovits deflected Dmitri Breus' shot into the net for 0:1 with just 105 seconds played. However, they were by no means fazed. On the contrary, Austria moved the puck well, impressed with aggressive forechecking, repeatedly played deep into the opposition zone and created chances.

A penalty shot by Vinzenz Rohrer unfortunately went unrewarded, but Austria continued to press for the equaliser. Their superiority was even more evident in the second period, but the long-overdue equaliser did not come until after the second break. Raphael Herburger finished off a perfectly played counter-attack for 1:1 after an assist from Vinzenz Rohrer. Austria remained on top and created numerous high-quality scoring chances, particularly in the middle of the third period. In the 52nd minute, Dominic Zwerger's shot off the post came within centimetres of giving Austria the lead.

Instead, Kazakhstan took the lead out of nowhere for 2:1. Tamirlan Gaitamirov scored the winner for his team in the 53rd minute.

Head Coach Roger Bader: "Right after the game, I think it was an unfortunate, undeserved defeat. I will analyse the game in detail to see whether that assessment is confirmed. In any case, we dominated an established top-tier nation for 60 minutes with 45 shots. When you get that many shots on target against a defensively minded opponent, you are doing a lot of things right. The puck definitely did not bounce our way. We had countless scoring chances. I think we could win the same game 5:1 without playing even one per cent better. There are simply games like that in ice hockey. Congratulations to Kazakhstan."

Dominic Zwerger: "I think we deserved more than what came out of the two games. Nevertheless, we are definitely on the right track and have taken another step forward in terms of our performance and style of play. Only the results did not go our way. If we continue like this, we can definitely establish ourselves as a team that will be difficult to beat in the future."

2024 OLYMPIC MEN'S ICE HOCKEY FINAL QUALIFICATION, GROUP D

Kazakhstan vs. Austria 2:1 (1:0,0:0,1:1)

Fri, 30 August 2024, 14:00, Bratislava, Ondrej Nepela Arena, 397
Kazakhstan goalscorers: Dmitri Breus (2nd minute), Tamirlan Gaitamirov (53rd minute)
Austria goalscorer: Raphael Herburger (43rd minute)

Austria lined up with:

Goaltenders: 30 Kickert David; 29 Höneckl Thomas (backup) 

Line 1: 19 Heinrich Dominique - 4 Reinbacher David; 16 Zwerger Dominic - 10 Kasper Marco - 3 Schneider Peter

Line 2: 25 Clemens Unterweger - 12 David Maier; 21 Lukas Haudum - 18 Benjamin Baumgartner -  28 Mario Huber

Line 3: 32 Bernd Wolf - 8 Thimo Nickl; 9 Ali Wukovits - 7 Benjamin Nissner - 23 Johannes Bischofberger

Line 4: 26 Paul Stapelfeldt - 27 Paul Huber; 17 Manuel Ganahl - 22 Raphael Herburger - 13 Vinzenz Rohrer

Next match:

Austria vs. Hungary

Sun, 01 September 2024, 14:00, Bratislava, Ondrej Nepela Arena - >> Live on ORF SPORT +

Already played:

Slovakia vs. Austria 2:1 (0:0,2:1,0:0)

Thu, 29 August 2024, 18:00, Bratislava, Ondrej Nepela Arena, 8.670

Slovakia scorers: Martin Gernát (33th minute), Miloš Kelemen (35th minute)

Austria scorer: Marco Kasper (40/PP2) 

All information on the official IIHF website