Olympia 2018: Tears at Shield:”Could have made gold.”

Drama at Bernadette Schild! The 28-year-old from Salzburg was eighth after the first run just before the final bronze winner Katharina Gallhuber, who had led until the second half of the second run to make a serious mistake. Then the tears flowed:”I could have made gold.”

Shield’s biggest opponent in Yongpyong was initially the unfamiliar “Scandinavian” snow. Despite this, however, the Salzburg-based rider stormed through the course and was still two tenths of a second ahead of the eventual winner Frida Hansdotter in the third half of the race.

“I could have won it, I was so far ahead”, Schild told ORF a long time after the race. Immediately afterwards she had not been able to speak.

After a “little slider”, Schild had got so out of the lane that she had to hit a combination of goals from the wrong side and lost almost all her speed:”I dropped or hoped and took a lot of risk above all. If that had happened there, okay,”said a depressed shield. She knew,”I could have won that today.”