The first gold medal of the French clan will have to wait. A big favorite in the mogul skiing event, the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympic champion, Perrine Laffont, had to settle for fourth place on Sunday February 6 at the Beijing Olympics. The French was overtaken by the Australian Jakara Anthony, crowned Olympic champion, the American Jaelin Kauf and the Russian Anastasiia Smirnova. She misses the opportunity to become the first woman to win the Olympic title for the second time by failing cruelly at the foot of the podium.
After two mastered first runs (third and fifth), all in control despite two small errors on the second run, Perrine Laffont failed to achieve the perfect run in the super final to hope for a podium finish. In the Chinese cold (-13 degrees), the Ariégeoise was more incisive on skis but made a small mistake on a jump landing, not enough to retain her title. With a score of 77.36 points, she misses bronze by nothing since the Russian is ahead of her by only 0.36 units.
The disappointment of the Pyréneénne was as great as her hopes of doubling the bet. “It was my dream [de gagner à nouveau]. I found it difficult to relax and ski like in trainingshe tried to explain at the microphone of France Télévisions, without knowing her disappointment. We’ll have to digest all that. We had been preparing for this for nine months. I’m going to need to cut a little bit. It’s a lot of work with no medal at the end. We’ll have to cash in and consider what’s next.”
At only 23 years old, Perrine Laffont still has many years ahead of her but the blow is hard when she had managed to rediscover a taste for pleasure on skis. In 2019, she admitted to thinking about hanging up the skis while she was going through a burnout.
Winner of the last four World Cups, the double world champion no longer dominates as much this season. Second in the World Cup for mogul skiing, she has only won twice individually (Tremblant and Deer Valley). Rarely, she also fell violently in Alpe d’Huez in December.
“It’s not just the favorites or the most consistent on the podium, she observed. Some are in good shape on D-day, others less so. It’s like that.” In the absence of the golden varnish that she had promised in the event of victory, Perrine Laffont found a way to console herself: “It’s hard but I’m going to eat chocolate.” The cruel color of his medal.