Laurence St-Germain and her teammates from the Canadian Alpine Ski Team were expecting big things in the slalom at the Beijing Olympics. Disappointed by their results, the four skiers nevertheless take some pride in what they have accomplished.
St-Germain, Erin Mielzynski, Ali Nullmeyer and Amelia Smart all qualified for the second round, but they were all excluded from the top-15 of this event presented on the IceRiver track at the National Alpine Ski Center in Yanqing. They all had higher expectations.
“We all could have had a chance to get on the podium or finish in the top five,” said Mielzynski, the top Canadian with a 16th place finish. That’s what we were aiming for, we didn’t come here to participate. We were pretenders. That’s why it’s so disappointing to me. »
“It is sure that on paper, I am not so proud of the result, especially to have done less well than in PyeongChang, added St-Germain, 17th, more than two and a half seconds from the winner, the Slovak Petra Vlhova. I’m happy, because my goal to get to the medal I was aiming for was to arrive confident and to attack, which I did. »
“I don’t have any regrets about my preparation over the last few days since we arrived in China or my attitude on the way to the inspection. Everything was in place. I’m really happy with it and it gives me confidence for my next races. (…) I learned a lot today even if I didn’t get the result I wanted. »
Nullmeyer was 21st, while Smart was 27th.
Costly Mistakes
St-Germain believes that his level of skiing was sufficient to compete with the best this Wednesday, but that three serious errors, including two in the first run, were fatal to him.
“At the top of the wall, I think I crushed my skis and I went really wide. It was very expensive. I was looking at my intervals and I had one that was faster than Lena (Duerr, from Germany), who finished first in the run. So my skiing was good, it was the mistakes that sank me. »
Without making excuses, she also noted that the track conditions left the skiers little room for error.
“Snow is weird for downhill skiing. Mistakes on snow like that, aggressive, are expensive. When the snow is very dry at altitude, like in Colorado, it’s your sharpening that you have to adjust. Here it is halfway between ice and very dry snow, so your skis must be very sharp. Except that as soon as you make a mistake, they answer too much and we saw several girls being deported. »
Most of the skiers – including the Canadians, who all improved – were able to make the necessary adjustments for the second run. But none as much as Vlhova.
The silver medalist in the discipline at the last Worlds gave Slovakia the first Olympic medal in alpine skiing in its history in brilliant fashion, flying over the course in 52.09 seconds in the second run to finish with a combined time of one minute, 44.98 seconds.
“It was very difficult to stay calm and concentrate on my skiing (after the first run), declared the winner at a press conference. But I received strong support from my team. They trusted me, believed in me and kept telling me that I was strong, ski free and enjoyed the moment. »
“I gave it my all and in the end I was Olympic champion. (…) It is difficult for me to say what it represents, what I feel. I’ve dreamed all my life of winning the Olympics, or winning a medal there. »
She beat the Austrian and world champion Katharina Liensberger by only eight hundredths of a second. The Swiss Wendy Holdener, silver medalist four years ago in Pyeongchang, this time won the bronze, 12 hundredths from the winner.
After dominating the first run, Duerr struggled on the final section of his second run to finish just off the podium, seven hundredths from a medal.
