Corinne Suter destroys Italy’s medal festival, Austria’s ski ladies get nothing, Cornelia Hütter is 77 hundredths behind bronze as the seventh best Austrian.
Austria’s alpine ski women missed a medal in the Olympic downhill run in Beijing. While Cornelia Hütter was the best Austrian in seventh place, almost a second behind Mirjam Puchner (8th), almost a second behind bronze, gold went to Corinne Suter in Yanqing on Tuesday. The 27-year-old world champion from Switzerland prevailed 0.16 seconds ahead of the top Italian favorite Sofia Goggia and her compatriot Nadia Delago (+0.57).
Thanks to Beat Feuz and Suter, both downhill gold medals at the 2022 games went to Switzerland. For the visibly disappointed defending champion Sofia Goggia, who had been in the lead at the last split, the burden of another knee injury three weeks earlier was apparently too great. The Italian hadn’t competed in a race since January 23 and also skipped the Super-G in China to concentrate on the downhill.
Driving with a torn cruciate ligament, the 29-year-old serial winner had to admit defeat to 27-year-old Suter. “For me, the biggest dream is coming true, I’m speechless,” Suter marveled. She is the first Swiss downhill Olympic champion since Dominique Gisin in Sochi in 2014. The German Kira Weidle, who was so strong in training, just missed bronze as fourth.
Austria’s women, on the other hand, did not compete in any phase of the race for a medal, which was postponed by half an hour due to wind in the Yanqing National Alpine Center and was later interrupted for a long time after the bad fall of Frenchwoman Camille Cerutti. Even though they risked everything. After heavy snowfall over the weekend, most of the snow on the track had been rolled flat. None of the ÖOC women could really cope with the idiosyncratic conditions on the Olympic route “The Rock”. There was also wind and changeable visibility.
In addition, Hütter almost fell victim to their extreme inclines in the upper part. “Of course we would have hoped for more from a team point of view,” said the Styrian, who didn’t just want to judge the Olympic race alone that day. In view of her injury years, she must see the issue differently.
“But I’m sure it also ticks me off that I haven’t achieved what I had in mind,” admitted Hütter. “At the same time it’s cool that I can ride again overall. That’s not something to be taken for granted. But of course you want more when you see that it’s possible again. You automatically want more. I’m now in part two of my career.”
Puchner admitted to having failed due to the external circumstances. “I find it extremely difficult in such conditions, I can’t pull myself together,” admitted the Super-G silver medalist. “One and a half seconds is too much, you don’t need any excuses. I have to find a way to get on the train better in these conditions,” the Salzburg native felt reminded of Cortina. “I had the problem there this year too, so I still have to learn.” But with a medal, of course, you go home easier and happier overall.”
Similar to Puchner, Siebenhofer sounded 1.94 seconds behind the winner and only twelfth place. “I made a mistake at the top and then I started to gamble a bit. I didn’t ski cleanly, but it doesn’t forgive you here,” explained the Styrian, who hopes for a better descent for the combination. Siebenhofer was convinced that anyone who watched the race carefully would have seen what was going on this time anyway.
Tippler, who was fourth in the Super-G and missed bronze by only 3 hundredths and then had to qualify internally for the downhill, also never reached the speed she had hoped for and ended up in 19th place, a huge 2.52 seconds behind. That’s too much to just explain with her skiing, Steirerin made other problems clear.
“I don’t want to make any excuses. But I just didn’t have the basic speed today,” explained Tippler at the finish. “I didn’t make any major mistakes and yet nothing progressed. I never got any faster,” said the 30-year-old, missing the “push” from the skis. “If you always go there straight away, that’s not a good sign, as you know. I stuck myself in and tried it, but I just couldn’t get any further.”
She was disappointed, but not in view of the “good company back there”. “So I still go home with a good feeling.”
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