Olympia 2018: Silver medal in the team competition:”Medal is very important”.

At the Olympic premiere for the alpine ski mixed team competition in Yongpyong, the Austrian team made it onto the podium. After a 3-1 defeat in the final, Austria won the silver medal behind winner Switzerland. Norway won the bronze medal after a 2-2 win against France in the small final due to the better overall time.

This medal is very important. As with all other competitions, it is only available every four years,”said Michael Matt, who was used in all rounds, in an interview with ORF. Katharina Gallhuber, who had already won bronze like Matt in the slalom, added:”The team competition is something completely different, it’s really special. We’re all individual athletes, so it’s even nicer to see it with the team.”

Since winning the gold medal at the 2015 World Championships in Vail, Red-White-Red was no longer desirable in the team competition, since then there has only been a third place on the podium at the 2015 World Cup finale in Meribel. In South Korea, the ÖSV team had to do without double Olympic champion Marcel Hirscher, who had travelled home early because of the preparation for the technical weekend in Kranjska Gora.

As expected, Austria had no problems against South Korea on the parallel slalom course with giant slalom goals in the round of sixteen, Austria won 4-0 in Gallhuber, Katharina Liensberger, Matt and Marco Schwarz. Sweden, with Olympic gold medallists Andre Myhrer and Frida Hansdotter, lost out 3-1 to Slovenia, leading to a feared quarter-final duel with the fearful opponent from ÖSV’s point of view.

At the current World Cup third place in Sweden, Austria was last at the World Cup finals 2015 in Meribel (third place), 2016 in St. Pauli. Moritz and failed in Aspen in 2017, finishing fifth in each case. Because of the ranking in the nationwide ranking, the countries recently met so often. On Saturday a long awaited revenge followed, which turned out to be a 4-0 success. Liensberger won against Hansdotter, slalom bronze medallist Matt against Mattias Hargin, Gallhuber against Anna Swenn Larsson and Manuel Feller against Myhrer.

Norway unexpectedly waited in the semi-final and the sovereign Liensberger presented against Kristin Lysdahl. Matt did not finish his run against Leif Kristian Nestvold-Haugen (1:1). Gallhuber vs. Nina Haver-Löseth and Schwarz vs Sebastian Foss-Solevaag drove the ball 3:1 home safely, which secured the final and a medal.

Norway then narrowly won the bronze medal in the small final against France. It was a historical precious metal, because with the 38. medal at these games Norway beat the record of the USA in total medals won by Vancouver 2010.

In the race for the gold medal there was Switzerland, which had cleared Hungary (4-0), Germany (2-2/time rule) and World Champion France (3-1) from the way. Liensberger also won her fourth race against Denise Feierabend. However, she was the only Austrian to score points in the final. In a duel between the slalom-bronze medallist and the winner of the silver medal, Matt beat Ramon Zenhäuser in the duel of the slalom-bronze medallist, Gallhuber narrowly lost against slalom silver medalist Wendy Holdener and Schwarz lost out to Daniel Yule in the duel of the last chance with a lot of risk.

Incidentally, Stephanie Brunner is also awarded a medal for her work. Each nation was allowed to register six runners and exchange them at any time.