Korea brings the best out of Hirscher as he bags another gold
PYEONGCHANG: Marcel Hirscher mastered the jitters that have afflicted Mikaela Shiffrin and Lindsey Vonn when he powered to his second Pyeongchang Winter Olympics title yesterday, becoming the event’s most successful skier so far.
While America’s Shiffrin and Vonn look to recover from defeats, Hirscher hit his groove in the men’s giant slalom, winning by an impressive 1.27sec — five days after his debut Olympic victory in the combined.
Norway’s Oystein Braaten proved untouchable in the men’s freestyle skiing slopestyle as the 16-day Games hit the halfway point. Norway also won the 4x10km men’s cross-country relay to reach nine gold medals and draw level with Germany at the top of medals table.
It has been a long wait for Games gold for Hirscher, who is the dominant figure of World Cup racing but whose best previous Olympic result was slalom silver in 2014.
However, the Austrian has flourished in South Korea. He said his years of success on the World Cup circuit proved vital as he beat Norway’s Henrik Kristoffersen and France’s Alexis Pinturault into second and third place.
“After the first run I thought to myself that the confidence is here and speed is here and I can win the race. There’s always a mind game between the first and second runs, but the years of experience helped me,” the 28-year-old Hirscher said.
His coach Michael Pircher said simply: “Right now he’s the best.”
While Hirscher savoured his second victory, Shiffrin was processing her defeat in the women’s slalom, her pet event, after vomiting with nerves at the start gate.
“It’s not necessarily the medallists who get the most out of the Olympics,” the American wrote in a soul-searching statement posted on social media. “It’s those who are willing to strip down to nothing and bare their soul for their love of the game. That is so much greater than Gold, Silver, or Bronze.”
A torrid Games for Russia, banned over doping but with 168 athletes competing as neutrals, improved as they won their third Pyeongchang silver, in the cross-country relay. They were denied gold by the masterful Norwegian skiers, who seized the lead through Simen Hegstad Krueger in the third leg before Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo sealed victory.
Frenchman Martin Fourcade wrote himself into the history books with a second biathlon gold, snatching victory by a whisker in a dramatic photo finish.
Fourcade, 29, who won the pursuit title on Monday, thought he had lost the 15km mass start to Germany’s Simon Schempp after the two men battled towards the line in a lung-bursting sprint.
They sprawled across the finish and Fourcade slammed his ski stick into the snow and shook his head in frustration, clearly thinking he had lost.
But anguish switched to delight when the photo finish gave him the gold, clocking his time at 35min 47.3sec. The German picked up the silver a split second behind while his compatriot Erik Lesser claimed the bronze 11.2sec adrift of Fourcade.
Fourcade won two golds at the 2014 Sochi Olympics and with his tally of four now holds the record for the most Winter Olympic gold medals won by a Frenchman.
Oleksandr Abramenko picked up Ukraine’s first medal of the Games as he triumphed in freestyle skiing men’s aerials.
Meanwhile a Russian athlete has been implicated in a doping case involving the banned substance meldonium, a source close to the situation told AFP yesterday.
It comes after a spokesman for the Olympic Athletes from Russia said one of its competitors has committed a “possible violation of anti-doping rules”, according to Russian media.