The largest amounts of natural snow for years in the Olympic region have mixed up the program in Beijing and the surrounding area. That doesn’t bother Mirjam Puchner, the silver medalist in Super-G is now looking forward to “real winter games”. The Salzburg native is also one of the extended favorites in tomorrow’s descent (4 a.m.) in Yanqing. Ramona Siebenhofer and Tamara Tippler are also seeded, after the departure of the injured Ariane Rädler, Christine Scheyer and Tamara Tippler fought for the fourth ticket in the red-white-red team.
The men staged a turbulent giant slalom with heavy snowfall and extremely poor visibility with delays. Only 46 of the 89 participants found their way into the result lists. “It was a bit dangerous, actually cheeky. If the race had been before the Olympics, I probably wouldn’t have done so for safety reasons,” explained Manuel Feller, who retired after seventh place at half-time in the final. He was annoyed by the piste helpers who, in his opinion, were not working effectively: “I couldn’t ski down the course after my failure because there were such big piles.”
No happy ending
The Chinese Meteorological Institute had issued a winter storm warning for Sunday and announced intense snowfall for the northern part of the huge country. Temperatures dropped to minus 16 degrees. Stefan Brennsteiner wouldn’t have cared at all if he had brought a medal that was within his grasp. But then the half-time second got the skis crossed and ultimately had no chance as 27th. After suffering a cruciate ligament rupture four years ago at the Winter Games in Pyeongchang, a little personal ski fairy tale could have been written, but the words alone didn’t add up to a happy ending. The story of suffering is richer by a chapter.
“What if…? I hate that sentence, it’s happened far too often to me,” said the relatively composed Salzburger: “It hurts, and the Olympics are only every four years, but there are still much worse ones things in life,” emphasized Brennsteiner. Despite the disappointment, the 30-year-old is confident about the future. “The positive thing is that my skiing is back on a good level.” The giant slalom specialist still has a chance in China, with the team competition taking place on Saturday.
Marco Schwarz is currently struggling with his form. 14th place with a deficit of 3.12 seconds is not enough for his claims. The hope that the Carinthian can ignite the turbo in the slalom on Wednesday is limited. “At the moment I’m not satisfied at all, it doesn’t fit,” said Schwarz.
The best Austrian was Raphael Haaser, who finished eleventh in his third and last Olympic race in 2022. “It’s a conciliatory farewell to Beijing,” said the Tyrolean.
The onset of winter in Zhangjiakou threw up the program for freestyle skiers. The men with Matej Svancer and Daniel Bacher only get involved in the action today, the final takes place on Wednesday.
Source: Nachrichten
