As his father had done more than three decades earlier, Austrian skier Johannes Strolz won an Olympic gold medal in the alpine combined race.
Not bad for a guy who wasn’t even in the national team until about a month ago.
The 29-year-old Strolls, who has won only one World Cup slalom, was the fourth fastest after a downhill run on Thursday. But he was half a second quicker than anyone else in the slalom, helping him finish before Norway’s Aleksandr Aamodt Kilde by 0.58 seconds.
The combined adds time from a downhill run and a slalom run.
Strollz’s father, Hubert, jointly won the gold medal at the 1988 Calgary Games. Hubert Strolls also won silver in the giant slalom that year, and nearly four years later won another Olympics combined but missed a gate at the end of the second run and was disqualified.
This is really a great moment for me and I am so grateful that I can finally live my dream and I have this gold medal in my hands like my father happened in Calgary in 1988 and yes just a dream come true, Strollz said.
Gold medal really means the world to me.
Strolls and his father are the first father-son duo to win Olympic gold in the same alpine skiing event.
Strollz had a career-best 10th place in more than eight years of World Cup racing before winning at Adelboden last month, when he was not even an official member of the Austrian team after being dropped.
However, that victory earned him a place in the squad for the Beijing Games, where he continues to prepare his slalom skis as he has done all season. A team member prepares Strollz’s downhill skis.
It’s a really wonderful story,” said Austrian men’s head coach Andreas Puelacker.
“We knew he was a fast skier on the downhill side and in slalom you see Adelboden, it was perfect. And after the downhill (today) I can imagine he might medal but the gold medal this one And there’s a story.
I think there was no pressure on him today. He was successful in Adelboden … and it was easy skiing for him here with this snow condition and here is why.
Canada’s Jack Crawford was third, 0.68 behind Strollz and 0.09 behind Kilde. World champion Marco Schwarz of Austria was fifth, just behind Swiss rival Justin Murisier.
The 29-year-old Kilde won her second medal at the Beijing Games. He also won a bronze medal in the Super-G on Tuesday.
It was quite astonishing. I haven’t skied slalom in two years. I just had a good feeling when I was skiing. I went for it, just pointed the skis and tried to stay in balance,” Kilde said.
it is too big. How’s the Olympics going? Of course there are some emotions along the way, but quite wonderful nonetheless.
Kilde was mentored by girlfriend Mikaela Shiffrin, who won slalom gold at the 2014 Sochi Games. Her 47 career World Cup victories in slalom are more than anyone else in any single event, although the American has failed to finish both of her events so far at the Beijing Games.
He just told me, keep up the pace and put the skis under you.’ And that’s what I’m going to do, Kilde said after the downhill run.
Shifrin posted a congratulatory message on social media.
Literally haven’t missed a run of slalom in years and then went and did it. What an athlete!! She wrote.
Strollz wasn’t the only one on the podium, who had family ties with a previous Olympian. Crawford’s aunt, Judy Crawford Rawley, finished fourth in the slalom at the 1972 Sapporo Games.
He always told me that nobody remembers fourth place, and it feels really good not to be in that position, said Crawford, who finished fourth in Monday’s downhill.
And it’s kind of throttling, but it’s true that a medal at the Olympic Games is everything, and that’s what you’re here to do and that’s what you want, and it feels amazing to actually accomplish that.
The winner of that slalom race 50 years ago in Japan was Barbara Ann Cochran, mother of American skier Ryan Cochran-Siegel, who won silver at Tuesday’s Super-G. Mathias Meyer won the gold medal better than his father Helmut, who had previously won a silver medal in the Olympic Super-G at the Calgary Games.
One of the favorites for Thursday’s United, Alexis Pinturault, had a disappointing performance at first and then fell in the slalom.
The Frenchman jointly won silver at the 2021 Word Championships, where he was defending his title, and the 2018 Pyeongchang Games. He failed to complete four of the six slalom races at the World Cup this season.
Another pre-race favorite, Switzerland’s Loic Meillard, had an error in the downhill but managed to stay on course. He failed to complete the second run after leading from a gate.
Thursday’s race had a total of 27 entrants, compared to 43 for the downhill and 47 for the Super-G earlier in the week. It is the first time in Olympic history that the event is taking place without at least one American racer.
The downhill run was delayed by about 10 minutes when Yannick Chabloz crashed and was carried in a sled. The Swiss skier fell into a barrier and then slid into a section of the mountain.
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