Yanqing (dpa) – The Swiss ski racer Lara Gut-Behrami is Olympic champion for the first time. The world champion and 34-time World Cup winner won the Super-G at the Winter Games in China.
On Monday, the 30-year-old had already won bronze in the giant slalom. Second behind Gut-Behrami was the Austrian Mirjam Puchner, third was the Swiss Michelle Gisin. The only German starter, Kira Weidle, was 15th. In the downhill next Tuesday, however, the Starnberg woman is to be assessed as much better. Mikaela Shiffrin (USA) reached the finish line this time after her early retirement in the giant slalom and slalom and finished ninth.
“I’m trying to enjoy it, but I think I’ll need a few more days to understand what happened,” said Gut-Behrami. Yanqing’s gold is the crowning glory of her career. In her homeland she was once considered a child prodigy. The Ticino made her World Cup debut at the age of 16, celebrated her first victory at the age of 17, and won the overall World Cup in the 2015/2016 season. However, she had to wait until the World Championships in Cortina d’Ampezzo a year ago for her first triumph at a major event. In addition to the Super-G, she also won the giant slalom. This season she missed five races due to a corona infection, but then set an exclamation mark again with the downhill victory in Zauchensee in mid-January.
Weidle found her own performance “okay. I got along well, there were also a lot of good swings,” said the 25-year-old. In the downhill, in which she finished second at the World Championships last February, she is hoping for a medal. Exceptional driver Shiffrin felt “relief” given the fiasco she had experienced in the days before.