Mikaela Shiffrin (USA/Alpine skiing): At the age of 18, the exceptional racer in Sochi had already become the youngest slalom Olympic champion, in 2018 in Pyeongchang she added giant slalom gold and silver in the combination. Nobody has celebrated as many World Cup victories in one discipline as the American in slalom (47). Shiffrin won four medals at the World Championships in Cortina last year. In Yanqing, the 26-year-old plans to start in all five disciplines – and wants to attack the women’s record for Olympic medals in alpine skiing, which Janica Kostelic and Anja Pärson hold with six each.
Eileen Gu (China/Ski Freestyle): The US-born freestyler has been competing for China since 2019. The 18-year-old is considered a medal candidate in the halfpipe, slopestyle and big air – and could become the big star of the Beijing Games. The daughter of a Chinese mother and an American father learned to ski at Lake Tahoe, and she feels that she belongs to both nations. Gu is considered a model student, she is a Stanford student and also works as a model. At the World Championships and the X Games last year, she won two gold medals each. She already has eight World Cup victories and is unbeaten in the halfpipe this season.
Yuzuru Hanyu (Japan/Figure Skating): There’s not much Japan’s figure skating star hasn’t won. Hanyu recently won Olympic gold twice in a row, and he is also one of the favorites in Beijing. The 27-year-old could become the first figure skater to win three Olympic medals in a row since 1928. In 2014 in Sochi he triumphed as the first Asian, four years later in Pyeongchang he got fit in time to follow suit. Hanyu now has seven world championship medals, two of them gold, four titles at the Grand Prix final and 19 world records. His big rival is the American Nathan Chen, who recently became world champion three times in a row.
Suzanne Schulting (Netherlands/Short Track): The Olympic 1,000m champion has dominated her sport since securing the first Dutch Olympic gold medal on the short track in Pyeongchang in 2018. At the World Championships in Dordrecht last year, Schulting was only the second woman to win all five competitions – including for the first time in World Championship history with the Dutch relay. Some top nations were missing at the time due to corona concerns, but Schulting is still considered a candidate for several gold medals in Beijing – even if a lot can happen in the short track due to the tough duels on the ice.
Marco Odermatt (Switzerland/Alpine skiing): The Swiss is not only well on his way to winning the big World Cup ball for the first time, he can also become the big winner at the Olympics. In the giant slalom, the 24-year-old won four out of five races this season and finished second once, and he also laughed twice from the top in the Super-G. And at the latest after the second places in Bormio, Wengen and Kitzbühel you know that there is not much missing from the first triumph in the downhill either. Odermatt has a quick mind, it will be his first Olympic Games. In 2018 he was still driving at the Junior World Championships – and won gold there five times.
Chloe Kim (USA/Snowboard Freestyle): The American was one of the stars of the 2018 games in PyeongChang. At 17, she became the youngest snowboard Olympic champion in history. Four years later she is still the clear favorite in the halfpipe. Kim, who had already triumphed at the X Games at the age of 14, retired from the sport for almost two years after her historic Olympic gold. However, Kim has already proven that she is ready for her second Winter Games: the Californian, whose parents are from South Korea, triumphed in the halfpipe at both the X Games and the World Championships in Aspen.
Johannes Thingnes Bö (Norway/Biathlon): The 28-year-old has already been world champion twelve times, in Pyeongchang he won Olympic gold in the individual over 20 km and two silver medals in the relay. The three-time overall World Cup winner has a good chance of adding more precious metals in Beijing: his big competitor before that, five-time Olympic champion Martin Fourcade, ended his career in 2020. This season, however, things have not gone optimally for Bö. The Norwegian has only won one World Cup race, the sprint in Annecy in December. He was more successful in the relays in which he also competes in China together with his older brother Tarjei.
Source: Nachrichten
