Olympics 2018: Aksel Lund Svindal breaks record of Mario Matt

Aksel Lund Svindal did a lot for the ski history books on Thursday in Jeongseon. He is Norway’s first Olympic downhill champion and at the same time, at 35 years of age, Norway’s oldest gold medal winner in an alpine discipline. He also caught up with Lower Austria’s Michaela Dorfmeister, who is the only one to have won downhill and Super-G Olympic victories (2006).

With all these enumerations, Svindal was right off the bat:\u0022It’s cool to get a gold medal. But when you cross the finish line and you see that you’re on a medal rank or on gold, you don’t think much of the story, that’s too emotional,\u0022explained the man from Kjeller, who also has an apartment in Innsbruck. He pointed out that it was all about taking this one chance,\u0022She won’t come back. There was only this one after a week of waiting.\u0022

Svindal drove a strong race in the middle and lower part of the track, his team mate Kjetil Jansrud was clearly ahead of him at the top. In the end, a Norwegian one-two win came out. This was also a double success for the head serviceman, who is in charge of both speed stars, and for the Austrian head coach Christian Mitter \u0022It is remarkable. We’re such a small team and both of us are sitting here. At Olympia you have to be good enough for the fight and then you have to fight,\u0022said Jansrud, who won the Olympic gold medal in the Super-G in Sochi in 2014. Svindal won the 2010 Vancouver/Whistler title in this discipline.

As the oldest winner, Svindal replaced the Tyrolean Mario Matt, who drove to the slalom gold medal in Sochi in 2014 with 34. In the women’s category, Dorfmeister leads the ranking with 32 and Lindsey Vonn wants to top it in South Korea:\u0022I’m old, that’s the beginning of the end. This is definitely my last Olympia. Nothing is one hundred percent certain, but that’s close enough,\u0022explained Svindal, who also has two trophies for overall World Cup victory and five gold medals (two in the downhill) at home.

When asked if he considers his career to be complete, Svindal laughingly said:\u0022I never won the downhill in Kitzbühel, so it’s not complete. No career is ever complete, you’re always trying to win as much as you can,\u0022he says,\u0022 He’s just very happy that this is the first time he’s ever skied in February in years,\u0022which is a really good timing. This is a special day.\u0022

Svindal has suffered many injuries during his career. 2016 he won the Super-G in Kitzbühel, the following day he crashed in bad visibility conditions on the downhill and suffered a tear in the front cruciate ligament and the meniscus in his right knee. 2017 he broke off the season between Wengen and the Hahnenkamm races because of a new and urgently needed knee operation.\u0022I had to give him a lot of injuries.

In October 2014, after the Norwegian team’s ski training in Sölden, Svindal tore the Achilles’ tendon out of a fun football match and dropped out for a year. In November 2007, in Beaver Creek in downhill training, he had a severe fall and underwent surgery on his face and buttocks. He had suffered a zygomatic fracture and a double nasal fracture, as well as a long and deep cut to the buttocks. Again and again Svindal fought his way back, time and again he celebrated great victories.

Congratulations to the Olympic gold medallist, Matthias Mayer, who was replaced as downhill Olympic gold medallist, and congratulations to the Olympic gold medallist, the Aksel,\u0022I think that if you deserve it, then it’s him, if you take the last few years like this. Really great,\u0022the Carinthian bowed.

Since the next men’s race was already scheduled for Friday in Jeongseon, good time management was required at Svindal. In the evening, the medal ceremony took place on the Medal Plaza, one hour away near the Olympic Stadium in Hoenggye.

Svindal explained that to gain strength from these experiences is the best preparation for the day ahead,\u0022On days like these, the last thing you have to do is stand on the podium and win the medal. And when they then play the anthem, it’s done, it’s perfect. And that’s the sign, and you start thinking about the next day during the hymn.