Alpine Combined | Second gold medal for Michelle Gisin

(Yanqing) A return to the top, and a descent into hell: the Swiss Michelle Gisin, long diminished by a virus, won her second consecutive Olympic title in the alpine combined on Thursday, while Mikaela Shiffrin lived through a new nightmare.

When it was time to say goodbye to “The Rock”, the downhill run, and “Ice River”, that of the technical events, two shivers ran through the few dozen followers gathered in Yanqing, for the last individual downhill skiing event. under a white and icy sky.

There was the clamor hailing Michelle Gisin, so dazzling in the slalom run that she made up for her cautious descent (12^and chrono) to win ahead of her compatriot Wendy Holdener, at 1 sec 05, and the Italian Federica Brignone, at 1 sec 85.

But a few minutes before, there had been amazement at the new exit from the track of the big American favorite, Mikaela Shiffrin, after a descent yet full of panache (5^and chrono), wearing skis lent by the Italian Sofia Goggia.

Olympic vice-champion of the specialty, the American left after ten gates the slalom traced by her coach, Mike Day, before descending very slowly, still incredulous.

Shiffrin feels ‘ridiculous’

“I feel ridiculous”, whispered the champion with three big globes (2017, 2018, 2019), prodigy of regularity to the point of having won more than a third of the World Cup events she has competed in (73 successes) .

The 26-year-old American had already been eliminated last week after three giant gates, from which she had won gold at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, then had made a mistake at the same stage of the slalom, where she had been crowned at the Sochi 2014 Olympics.

“I knew my plan, I was focused, I was skiing well, but it still doesn’t work,” noted the skier from Vail (Colorado), ensuring that she was not particularly nervous as the pressure “is familiar to her”.

If this ski legend is going to leave the Games for the first time without an individual medal, Michelle Gisin joins a unique club: that of skiers with more Olympic titles (now two) than World Cup victories (one in slalom end of 2020).

Already a bronze medalist in the super-G, the 28-year-old Swiss brings the family loot to four Olympic medals, including three gold, since her older sister Dominique won the downhill at the 2014 Sochi Olympics (tied with the Slovenian Tina Maze).

Swiss raid

Exhausted this season by mononucleosis triggered in the summer, the skier from Engelberg, in the small canton of Obwalden, embellishes the incredible Swiss harvest in alpine skiing, with a fifth title (golden descents for men and women, women’s super-G and men’s giant), which no other nation had ever achieved.

“We already had incredible World Championships last year (in Cortina, Italy, editor’s note). Every athlete put out their best performances and being able to repeat that at the Games, on the biggest stage in the world […]it’s absolutely crazy”, rejoiced the Swiss woman.

Finally, in this discipline queen of versatile skiers, Gisin joins in history the Croatian Janica Kostelic, who had achieved the same double in combined (2002, 2006), and the German Maria Riesch (2010, 2014).

By adorning herself with silver, Wendy Holdener pocketed her fifth Olympic medal in two editions, while Federica Brignone, second in the giant, but disappointed by her results in speed, finished with a bronze medal.