The World Downhill Champion from Cortina d’Ampezzo 2021 Corinne Suter broke the Italian hearts at the Beijing 2022 Olympics after winning the gold at the Yanqing Alpine Center.
Before the descent of the Swiss, the three Italians Sofia Goggia, Nadia Delago and Elena Curtoni were in the top three and looked almost certain on the podium. However, they were shocked by the descent of Corinne Suter, who did not make a single mistake and with a time of 1:31.87 min reached the gold.
The silver left for Sofia Goggia, who was just 0.16 sec away from defending her title from PyeongChang 2018. The Italian ski star competed in Beijing just three weeks after her heavy fall in the Super-G in Cortina d’Ampezzo, in which she injured her knee. Her presence at the Beijing Games was in question until the last moment, but she still recovered in time and almost missed her second consecutive gold.
The bronze was won by Nadia Delago, who does not have a single podium in her career in the World Cup, but today she drove with inspiration and finished at 0.57 sec behind Corinne Suter. At the foot of the medals was Kira Weidle of Germany, who was just 0.14 sec slower than Nadia Delago. The five with a passive of exactly 1.00 sec compared to the champion closed Elena Curtoni, who was the first to descend the track today.
With his victory today, Corinne Suter consolidated Swiss dominance in the speed Olympics in Beijing. The Swiss won three of the possible four gold medals in the men’s and women’s downhill and super-giant slaloms.
“It was the biggest dream of my life, so I don’t know what to say”, said Corinne Suter said after the success. “In the final, I wasn’t sure if it was good or not, because sometimes I had the feeling that there was wind against me, and then behind me, and also on the side. Today was not so easy, but now I’m super happy”, added she.
The alpine skiing program at the Beijing 2022 Olympics continues tomorrow with the men’s slalom. For the ladies, tomorrow is the training in the downhill before the alpine combination on Wednesday. It will include one downhill run and one slalom run. The favorite for the gold in the combination is the American Mikaela Shiffrin, who finished 18th today and remains without a medal from the Games in the Chinese capital. She is the world champion in the combination for 2021.
