Austria’s Matthias Mayer went “all in” yesterday to successfully defend his Olympic super-G title in Beijing and make history as the first men’s alpine skier to win gold medals in three consecutive Games.
Mayer, who won his first super-G title in Pyeongchang in 2018 and also took downhill gold at the Sochi Olympics in 2014, clocked a winning time of 1 minute, 19.94 seconds.
The US’ Ryan Cochran-Siegle took a surprise silver 0.04 seconds behind Mayer, with Norway’s Aleksander Aamodt Kilde claiming bronze 0.42 seconds behind him.
Photo: AFP
Mayer, 31, again went one better than his father Helmut, won silver when the super-G made its Olympic debut in 1988.
“I tried to push hard, really hard,” said Mayer, who also won a bronze medal in Monday’s downhill, won by Switzerland’s Beat Feuz.
“I saw Kilde’s run on TV at the start and it was really good, so I knew that I had to go all in. I tried to push hard to the last gate, and it was good,” Mayer said.
Kilde was the big favorite coming into the race as the FIS Alpine Ski World Cup leader in the speed event, having won three of the last four super-G races on the circuit this season.
The Norwegian took temporary control of the leaderboard, but could only look on as Mayer delivered a gliding masterclass in the bottom section of the 2.3km-long “Rock” course that helped him take the definitive lead.
Hitting speeds of 120kph, Mayer was behind on the first intermediaries in the testing upper section that snaked through the barren mouocksntainscape of Yanqing, north of Beijing.
However, the Austrian somehow found more speed in a consummate descent of the vertical drop of 645m on hard-packed artificial snow in brilliant sunshine.
“I did really well in the last section,” Mayer said. “It was a great race and a very close race.”
Cochran-Siegle, who also comes from a family of skiers with his mother Barbara having won slalom gold for the US at the 1972 Olympics, said of Mayer: “He’s an incredible skier, takes advantage of the big moments. To be so close to him, it’s something special.”
It was indeed a remarkable result for the Austrian, who had won just one World Cup super-G since his triumph in Pyeongchang, although he has made the podium three times this season.
His gold meant he joined an exclusive club of skiers to have won gold medals in three different Games after Italy’s Deborah Compagnoni in 1992, 1994 and 1998; and Norway’s Kjetil Andre Aamodt in 1992, 2002, 2006.
“That’s such a big success, I can’t imagine right now,” Mayer said. “I was very focused on these races, and now at this moment I don’t think about history.”
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