Hereditary Prince Sees Off Olympics Athletes

Photo: Daniel Schwendener / Liechtensteiner Vaterland / Vaterland.li

Hereditary Prince Alois officially bid farewell to Liechtenstein's Olympic athletes this week. Three athletes will represent the Principality at the Winter Games in Pyeongchang: Alpine skiers Tina Weirather and Marco Pfiffner as well as cross country skier Martin Vögeli with Liechtenstein's medal hopes certainly laying with Weirather, who won a silver medal at the World Championships last year.

With its nine medals in Olympic history, Liechtenstein has, in fact, won more medals per capita than any other nation. Not surprisingly for the only nation to lie entirely within the Alps, all of the medals were won in alpine skiing. The first two medals for Liechtenstein were won at the 1976 Winter Olympics. Hanni Wenzel, who later went on two become a double Olympic champion and is actually the mother of Tina Weirather, won a bronze medal in the giant slalom and Willi Frommelt took another bronze medal in the slalom. At the 1980 Lake Placid Games, Hanni Wenzel won two gold and one silver medal with her brother Andreas winning another silver medal for the Principality. Liechtenstein's athletes took home another three bronze medals at the 1984 and 1988 Olympics through Andreas Wenzel, Ursula Konzett and Paul Frommelt.

More pictures of the Hereditary Prince seeing off the athletes at Vaterland.