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Swiss duo of Hoefflin and Gremaud take the Olympic gold and silver in ladies' slopestyle
18 February 2018 года
Swiss duo of Hoefflin and Gremaud take the Olympic gold and silver in ladies' slopestyle

Mathilde Gremaud (SUI) was undergoing tests in hospital just hours before she won silver and her Swiss teammate Sarah Hoefflin took gold in ladies' ski slopestyle at the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games on Saturday.

Bronze went to Isabel Atkin (GBR), who is the first athlete from Great Britain to win an Olympic medal on skis.

With that win on Saturday, Hoefflin became the second Swiss woman to claim an Olympic gold medal in freestyle skiing.

Gremaud looked set to walk away with gold after scoring 88.00 in her first run before Hoefflin  surged ahead on 91.20 after landing a switch-left-double-nine in her third run at Phoenix Snow Park.

"I just wanted to land the switch-left-double-nine," Hoefflin said. "That's all I cared about. "For me it's not really about the medal, it's mostly about the skiing and I just had that trick in mind just before my third run."


It was Switzerland's first one-two finish in an event at an Olympic Winter Games since Turin 2006 when Philipp Schoch and Simon Schoch crossed the line in first and second in the men's snowboard parallel slalom. The last time Switzerland had a one-two in an Olympic Winter Games women's event was at Sarajevo 1984 when Michela Figini and Maria Walliser took gold and silver in the Alpine skiing ladies' downhill event. 

Gremaud, 18, did not have the best start for Saturday's qualifications after spending the morning undergoing tests for concussion after a training accident the day before.

"It was a hard beginning for me because I hit my head during the last training (session) and I had to go to hospital," Gremaud said. "I wasn't sure I could ski today, but everything was good and I was happy I could ski and just have fun."

She does not remember how she fell during training, but team doctor German Clenin said Gremaud hit the back of her head after falling from a rail.

As a precaution doctors monitored her overnight and she underwent a second round of neurological testing on Saturday before the race.

"If there was a concussion, she wouldn't compete today," Clenin said. "We're strict on that."

At the age of 18 years and nine days, Mathilde Gremaud became the youngest medallist in freestyle skiing at the Winter Games. She broke the record of Yelisaveta Kozhevnikova (EUN) who was 18 years and 48 days old when she won silver in the ladies' moguls in 1992.

Isabel Atkin (GBR)is only the second Briton to win a medal in a snow event at the Winter Games, after Jenny Jones who won bronze in the snowboard slopestyle in Sochi four years ago.

 

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Source: fis-ski.com




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