Olympic giant slalom quickly over for Adriana Jelinkova | Olympics

Born in the Czech Republic and raised in the Netherlands, Jelinkova is the first alpine skier to represent the Netherlands at the Olympics since Margriet Prajoux-Bouma in Oslo in 1952. She will also compete in the slalom on Wednesday at Games.

In January last year, 26-year-old Jelinkova was the first of the 42 athletes of TeamNL participating in Beijing to qualify for the Olympic Games. She did this by finishing eleventh in the giant slalom at the World Cup competition in Slovenian Kranjska Gora. Because Jelinkova had already finished tenth in Lech in Austria in November 2020, she met the qualification requirements of NOC*NSF early on; finish in the best eight once in a World Cup race or twice in the best sixteen.

A day after qualifying, she tore her anterior cruciate ligament at the competition in Slovenia. Jelinkova was operated on in Innsbruck and had to convalesce for no less than ten months. Just under three months ago, the skier made her comeback at the World Cup in Lech.

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After the first run in the giant slalom, the Swedish Sara Hector leads, who took 57.56 seconds to complete her race. Katharina Truppe from Austria is provisionally second with a time of 57.86, ahead of Italian Federica Brignone (57.98).

The Slovakian Petra Vlhova, previously seen as Shiffrin’s biggest competitor, is currently thirteenth with 59.34 seconds. In the World Cup standings, Shiffrin has a small lead over Vlhova, the 2019 world champion in giant slalom.

In the second race past the gates, the skiers start in the reverse order of the standings, with number 30 first.