Snowboard star Michelle Dekker returns to Olympic Games | Sport

Dekker reached the eighth finals in the parallel giant slalom four times in the past qualifying period. Last weekend she reached the quarterfinals in Simonhöhe in Austria.

With her performance, Dekker partly meets the qualification requirements. NOC*NSF will let her go to Beijing anyway, because the Dutch Ski Association has been able to convince the association that Dekker can make it to the final rounds in her current form.

“We have decided to make this nomination because Michelle has been in top form over the past few weeks. She proved that by partially meeting the national performance requirements at her last competition in Simonhöhe,” says Wopke de Vegt, technical director of the NSkiV. “She has also missed the top eight by a fraction of a second in the final rounds. In addition, our athletes depend on other countries for their snow training and COVID-19 ensured that slopes were regularly available only for their own national teams. So it also says a lot about Michelle’s persistence.”

New chance

Dekker was also there four years ago in Pyeongchang. She was unable to compete at the top of the field. She is happy that she now has another chance. “The past two seasons have been extremely difficult for me as a Dutch snow sportsman. Normally I have to arrange a lot myself, but now there was a lot involved. I am very grateful to NOC*NSF for delving into the extra challenges many snow sports enthusiasts have had in the past two seasons and I am of course very proud of my performance last weekend.”

The Dutch Olympic team for Beijing 2022 now has 37 athletes, including Dekker.