Olympia 2022: Lara Gut-Behrami wins gold in Super-G, Kira Weidle in midfield

Lara Gut-Behrami stood in front of the red wall in front of which she had to wait as the leader, and her grin grew ever wider. Worries were unfounded, because none of the runners who wanted to compete for the medals in the Super-G came even close to the time of the Swiss.

And so the double world champion finally crowned her great career after bronze in the giant slalom on Monday with the first Olympic gold of her career – immediately congratulated by IOC President Thomas Bach.

At the award ceremony, a few tears flowed from the 30-year-old.

Olympia – Alpine Skiing

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For Gut-Behrami, the gold triumph in Super-G “after this complicated year” was the emotional highlight, as she herself reported on “SRF”.

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Lara Gut-Behrami shed tears after her gold run

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Gut-Behrami: Gold is not the greatest career success

“I always had the feeling that I had to prove more. I’ve fought for years. Now I see everything that comes along as an encore,” said the Swiss, who had previously only won bronze in Sochi in 2014 before Beijing. She has “calmed down as a person” in recent years. Gut-Behrami continued: “I can accept what people tell me. Maybe I couldn’t do that before. I was often too hard on myself.”

Nevertheless, this success at the Olympics is not the greatest triumph of her career: “To develop myself further, to realize that I’m doing it for myself because I love skiing. That’s the greatest victory of my career.”

In addition to Gut-Behrami, there were two surprise guests on the podium: Mirjam Puchner (Austria/+0.22 seconds) and Michelle Gisin (Switzerland/+0.30). As expected, Kira Weidle played no role in her weaker discipline as 15th. The co-favorite Federica Brignone (Italy) only came in seventh, Mikaela Shiffrin (USA) after her failures in giant slalom and slalom in ninth place.

Snowboard queen Ester Ledecka, who sensationally won gold in the Super-G four years ago in Pyeongchang, took fifth place this time (+0.43) after winning the Olympics again on one board. “I first had to remind myself that today I’m no longer a snowboarder, but a ski racer,” said the Czech, who in 2018 initially duped the assembled world elite of alpine ski racers.

“The line was perfect”: Gut-Behrami races to gold

Gut-Behrami also favorite in the downhill

Ledecka had few, but of course words of praise for her successor. “She’s a great skier,” she said, so Gut-Behrami’s first gold at the Olympics was “only a matter of time.”

In fact, Gut-Behrami had to wait a very long time: Ever since she won two silver medals at the World Championships in Val d’Isere as a 17-year-old, she has been considered a coming dominator of the scene.

Gut-Behrami won gold for the first time at the World Championships last February in Cortina d’Ampezzo, when she won the giant slalom in addition to the super-G. Thanks to this preliminary achievement, she has now achieved something unique: Never since the Super-G became Olympic in 1988 has a world champion in this discipline also won an Olympic medal. It was the third Olympic medal for the Swiss: in 2014 she was third in the downhill.

Gut-Behrami is also favored for the descent, for Kira Weidle (+1.15) the Super-G was just a test for the race in the supreme alpine discipline on Tuesday. “I wanted to get a feeling for the descent,” said the vice world champion in the “ARD” that “partly” went well, “partly not so”.

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