China’s freestyle skiing superstar Eileen Gu was beaten to gold for the second time at the Milan–Cortina Winter Olympics on Monday after Loïc Meillard extended Switzerland’s domination of men’s alpine skiing.
Gu was aiming to retain her big air title, one of the two golds she won four years ago when she was the darling of the Beijing Winter Games.
The withdrawal through injury of Switzerland’s Mathilde Gremaud, who beat Gu into second in the slopestyle event earlier in these Olympics, should have smoothed her path to victory.
But Gu came up against inspired Canadian Megan Oldham, who pulled out all the stops to win at Livigno Snow Park.
Gu even risked slipping out of medal position after a poor second attempt, but she came back impressively to score 89.00 with her final effort to propel her into the silver medal position.
However, Oldham’s cleaner skiing gave her a combined score of 180.75 to finish narrowly ahead of Gu (179.00), while Flora Tabanelli won bronze for Italy.
“It feels incredible,” said Oldham. “I’m still trying to process it all. It’s been such a dream of mine.”
Gu has not competed in big air, in which competitors take off from a large ramp and perform aerial tricks, since the Beijing Games.
The Californian-born 22-year-old, who also has a modelling career and is one of the most marketable women athletes in world sport, has now won two silver medals in Italy and has a final chance of gold when she competes in her favoured event, the halfpipe, on Saturday.
Her defeat on Monday means China has still not won a gold medal at the Milan–Cortina Winter Olympics, with six days of competition to go.
Read morePolitics, penis injections, broken medals: A week of controversy at the Winter Olympics
Swiss ski stranglehold
Meillard’s impressive victory in Bormio gave the Swiss four of the five golds on offer in men’s skiing at these Games.
Atle Lie McGrath looked on track to redress the balance in Norway’s favour when he led the slalom after the first run in Bormio.
But in the second leg McGrath hit a gate high on the course, ending his hopes.
Disgusted, he threw his poles away and lay in the snow, later collecting his bag and wandering off into the forest next to the course to reflect alone.
Instead, it was Meillard who took control of the race, clocking a winning time of 1min 53.61sec, with Austrian Fabio Gstrein winning silver, 0.35sec behind, and Henrik Kristoffersen rounding out the podium with a consolation bronze for Norway.
The slalom gold can be added to Franjo von Allmen’s downhill and super-G titles, while Switzerland also won the men’s team combined gold.
Meillard himself now has a full collection of medals from these Games, having also won bronze in the giant slalom and silver in the team combined event.
“Every medal is special,” he said. “To win the slalom in the Olympics one year after being world champion is very special.”
And he hailed the current strength of Swiss skiing.
“We’re living in a bit of a golden era in Switzerland in skiing,” he said.
“It’s crazy what’s been happening in the last few years, and so everyone has to enjoy it as much as possible because most likely we will not stay like that for the next 10 years.”
Read moreCan the Winter Olympics survive the climate crisis?
Miura and Kihara win title for Japan
Japan’s Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara pulled out the best performance of their careers to move from fifth overnight to grab Olympic figure skating pairs gold on Monday.
The Japanese had been trailing after errors in their short programme but sealed gold with a rousing performance to the “Gladiator” soundtrack to give their country not only a first Olympic gold medal in the pairs event, but a first medal of any colour.
They knelt on the ice and wept after their fast-moving and dynamic skate brought the crowd to their feet in the Milano Ice Skating Arena.
Their routine earned the Japanese personal best scores in both the free skate (158.13 points) and overall, with 231.24 points.
Georgia’s Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava took silver nearly ten points behind with 221.75, as overnight leaders Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin of Germany took bronze with 219.09.
Miura, 24, and 33-year-old Kihara had helped Japan win team silver for the second consecutive Olympics earlier in the Games.
But the two-time world champions thought they had let gold slip through their fingers on Sunday night as they trailed 6.9 points behind Hase and Volodin.
The Germans, silver medallists behind the Japanese at last year’s world championships, paid for mistakes in their free skate to music by Max Richter, achieving just fourth best in the free skate.
Metelkina and Berulava, who teamed up in 2023, moved up from third to second, having won the European title in January.
Defending Olympic champions Sui Wenjing and Han Cong of China finished fifth with 208.64 in their skate to “A Tapestry of a Legendary Land” after struggling with their jumps.
The Chinese pair only returned to competition this season after retiring following their Olympic triumph in Beijing four years ago.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
English (US) · 