The Kenyan flags in the finish area of the Jeongseon Alpine Centre were waved frenetically as Sabrina Simader crossed the finish line of the Olympic super-G with a gap of 5.14 seconds to winner Ester Ledecka,”That was really cool, I’m very happy,”beamed the 19-year-old, who was one of the top athletes in the field. left the old champion Sarah Schleper, who is now competing for Mexico, behind her.
“Thirty-eight. getting to the finish is great and I know there’s a lot more inside. In the future, I’ll also be able to get the five seconds out in the future,”she announced in a conversation with SPOX, confidently and with a broad smile on her lips.
The first Kenyan participant feels the joy of skiing at winter games – and buys her promise for the future. As a one-woman team, she had arrived at the opening ceremony and made history again. Already in the World Cup and at the World Championships in St.. Moritz was the first athlete to set milestones for the East African country.
Simader doesn’t want to be seen as an exotic woman, and she says that this is no longer the case among her colleagues:”Because I grew up in Austria, learned to ski there and achieved my performance, this is already quite well accepted”.
At the age of three years Simader, born in Kilifi, came to the Mühlviertel with her mother and her Austrian stepfather, later the family moved on to Styria, where Simader still lives and trains today. Her athletic career hardly differs from that of her ÖSV colleagues. She celebrated successes at Styrian youth championships and attended the ski school in Schladming. Former ÖSV coach Christian Reif is her trainer, serviceman, manager and team organizer in personal union.
Simader knows only too well what it means in the ski circus not to have a large association like the Austrian one behind him. She has to pay for everything herself, find sponsors or go out of her way. For example, she organized a crowdfunding campaign for the Olympic Games at “I believe in you” – and was successful with it:”I’m really thrilled, a big thank you to all those who helped me,”Simader greeted her supporters.
However, in order to push ahead with the development we are striving for, it would be necessary to invest more in their team:”This still has to grow, but it’s not easy from a budget point of view,”she said,”it’s realistic that we’re now working well, the season isn’t over yet, and then we’ll take another step forward next season.”
There is no financial support from the institutions in Kenya for the fact that people are slowly realizing their commitment to skiing, but Simader makes them proud:”The Kenyans only found out that I exist shortly before the Olympic Games. They’re really happy,”she says,”I get a lot of news. I’m glad you’re so supportive of me.”
With the Super-G, Simader, who had also competed on RTL, has completed the active Olympic missions and can now fully enjoy the spectacle around the games:”There are so many impressions, I can really take a lot of things with me,” she said. There’s no such thing in the World Cup otherwise.”
I’m not accommodated there, but in an apartment just outside of it,”she explains, and also reveals:” In Korean apartments there is traditionally no bed, so it was called sleeping on the floor “.
Yes, life as a lone fighter in the ski circus is hard in the truest sense of the word. If Simader takes out the five seconds, impressions of this kind may soon be a thing of the past for Kenya’s strong ski team.