Katharina Gallhuber sensationally won the already eighth medal for Austria at the Olympic Winter Games in Pyeongchang on Friday with slalom bronze. The 20-year-old from Lower Austria, whose best World Cup result so far is sixth place, only the Swedish Frida Hansdotter and the Swiss Wendy Holdener had to admit defeat in Yongpyong.
Only five hundredths decided on gold and silver. Gallhuber was 0.32 seconds behind Hansdotter and relegated top favourite Mikaela Shiffrin to fourth place by eight hundredths. Just as bitterly disappointed as the US-American, who had won the giant slalom the day before, was Bernadette Schild, who left the finish line in Yongpyong without comment.
The 28-year-old from Salzburg, who had been eighth immediately before Gallhuber after the first run, had led until the third intermediate time in the second run, but then made a serious mistake, which cost her gold. Finally, Schild was seventh in front of her ÖSV team mate Katharina Liensberger. The fourth Austrian ski lady, Stephanie Brunner, had already retired in the first run.
Gallhuber could hardly believe her luck:”I was really cool at the start. But that’s enough for the bronze medal, I can’t believe it. I figured, yeah, that was a good run. But the fact that it is enough to go so far forward and also for the Mika, a madness,”emphasized the Göstlingen-based driver, who scored a superior best time in the second run. 0.71 seconds was her lead in the final over Hansdotter, who managed the second-best runtime as in the first run.
“For me, the goal has always been to be there. It was already a dream nomination, and now the medal. I think I even had a tailwind down here. And I used it,”explained Gallhuber,”I drove here and just wanted to drive a normal race. I think Göstling’s upside down. They won’t believe it any more than I will. I feel like I’m in a dream.”
After Pernilla Wiberg (gold 1992 in giant slalom and 1994 in combination) and Anja Pärson (gold 2006 in slalom) Hansdotter became the third alpine ski Olympic champion from Sweden. 32-year-old Hansdotter was also in a good mood:”That’s great, an unbelievable feeling”, the 32-year-old was happy about her first gold medal. After finishing sixth in the giant slalom, she had “started with a smile on her face”, Hansdotter said,”I wanted to enjoy this race and tried to drive as good as possible. I succeeded.”
Half time leader Holdener knew where she had left her gold:”The upper part was not good, I felt that. You could look for every goal and find those five hundredths of a second,”said the 24-year-old.”I wasn’t so easy in the second run and I wasn’t so smooth anymore.”
Shiffrin complained about fatigue:”Of course I am disappointed. I had had an incredible slalom season until now. I didn’t feel like myself today,”said the three-time World Champion, who decided to give up the Super-G on Saturday to focus on the combination.