Vonn’smistake costly in super- G
There will be no medal for American skier Lindsey Vonn in the Olympic super- G at the PyeongchangGames. She had a fast run going Saturday before a wide turn near the bottom cost her valuable time, and she finished in a tie for sixth.
Ester Ledecka, 22, of the Czech Republic, the 26th racer to take the course, made a stunning run from back in the pack to take the title, blazing through the course in a time of 1minute, 21.11 seconds. Defending champion Anna Veith of Austria earned the silver, finishing 0.01 seconds back, and Tina Weirather of Liechtenstein captured bronze.
Ledecka, who also is a snowboarder, won the parallel giant slalom at the world snowboard championships last March.
“I wish I had so much athleticism as she has and hop from sport to sport,” Vonn said of Ledecka. “I feel like in the Olympics, a lot of weird things happen.”
Vonn will have another chance in the downhill. At age 33, she’s trying to become the oldest woman to win an Olympic Alpine medal. She won bronze in the super- G at the 2010 Vancouver Games — to go with her downhill gold — but missed the 2014 Sochi Olympics after knee surgery.
Hoefflin wins gold for Swiss
Switzerland’s Sarah Hoefflin, 27, put together an electric final run down the demanding course at Phoenix Snow Park, posting a score of 91.20 to edge teammate MathildeGremaud for gold in women’s slopestyle skiing. Gremaud scored 88.00 on the first of her three runs in the finals but couldn’t top Hoefflin.
Hoefflin is a latecomer to freestyle skiing. She didn’t get serious about the sport until her early 20s after she failed to get into medical school.
Isabel Atkin of Great Britain took bronze with a score of 84.60 in her final run.
Defending Olympic champion Dara Howell crashed twice during qualifying and didn’t advance. American Devin Logan, a silver medalist in Sochi, reached the finals but wasn’t a factor after crashing or having execution problems in each of her last three runs.
Russianwomen pull upset
Anna Shokhina had two goals and two assists as the Olympic athletes from Russia advanced to the women’s semifinals against defending gold- medalist Canada by beating Switzerland 6- 2. They upset the Swiss, the 2014 bronze medalist who came into the quarterfinals undefeated in winning Group B. The Swiss also had given up only two goals in three games.
◆ On the men’s side, the Czech Republic beat Canada 3- 2 in a shootout. Petr Koukal had one goal and Jan Kovar two in the shootout for the Czechs. Wojciech Wolski tallied for Canada.
Norovirus cases spread
Olympics organizers say the total number of norovirus cases has increased to 261 with the detection of 17 more. Of those, 44 people are still in quarantine and 217 have been released, including two Swiss athletes who planned on competing at the games.