Beijing 2022
German hope for a medal falls short of the podium – that was the Olympic night
Beijing 2022: Kira Weidle from Team Germany competes in the women’s downhill at the Olympic Games
© Alexis Boichard / Agence Zoom / Getty Images
After her second place in the World Cup and her strong training performance on the Olympic slope, Kira Weidle was considered a medal candidate in the downhill – but it was only enough for fourth place. China’s superstar Eileen Gu celebrates the second medal.
Even after the women’s downhill run, the Alpines of the German Ski Association remained without a precious metal at the Winter Olympics in Beijing. Kira Weidle narrowly missed the longed-for medal. Snowboarder Annika Morgan is “in no way sad” about tenth place. In ski freestyle, Eileen Gu wins silver in the slopestyle competition after gold in the Big Air discipline.
Crashing Olympia-Aus:
The German national ice hockey team was eliminated early at the Winter Olympics in Beijing. Four years after winning the silver medal in Pyeongchang, the team coached by Toni Söderholm lost the first knockout game against Slovakia 0-4 (0-1, 0-2, 0-1) on Tuesday. The selection of the German Ice Hockey Federation (DHB) missed the quarter-finals. Libor Hudacek (12th minute), Peter Cehlarik (28th), Michal Kristof (29th) and Marek Hrivik (58th) scored the goals for Slovakia.
Medal dream burst:
Ski racer Kira Weidle missed the longed-for medal in the downhill. The 25-year-old from Starnberg finished fourth in the supreme discipline on Tuesday, 0.71 seconds behind Corinne Suter from Switzerland. The battered speed dominator Sofia Goggia from Italy won silver, followed by compatriot Nadia Delago. After her second place in the Zauchensee World Cup and her strong training performance on the Olympic slope, Weidle was considered a medal candidate. But the Alpines of the German Ski Association remain without precious metal.
Ready for use after quarantine:
Nordic combined athlete Eric Frenzel sees himself fit after surviving the corona quarantine and medical examinations and is hoping for an Olympic team competition. “The health checks were good,” said the 33-year-old at a press conference by the German team in Zhangjiakou on Tuesday. “The doctors gave the go-ahead to charge me.” However, Frenzel also pointed out that a nomination for him for the competition on Thursday was not a matter of course. Frenzel, who had tested positive for the corona virus when entering China, was in a good mood after the end of the hotel isolation the day before. “It was just really nice to see everyone again yesterday and to be able to enjoy that feeling of freedom again,” he said.
cold start:
Because of the extreme cold in Zhangjiakou, the team sprint competitions for cross-country skiers have been brought forward. The qualification starts on Wednesday at 3.15 p.m. local time (8.15 a.m./CET), the finals begin at 5.15 p.m. (10.15 a.m./CET). The races were originally scheduled 105 minutes later. The women’s relay silver winners Katharina Hennig and Katherine Sauerbrey start for the German team. Albert Kuchler and Janosch Brugger will be in the men’s race, as the German Ski Association announced.
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missed the final:
After two falls, snowboarder Annika Morgan missed the top eight in the Big Air. The 20-year-old was only the second of three jumps in the final on Tuesday and had to settle for tenth place with 88.00 points. “I’m definitely not sad,” said the woman from Miesbach and, after two finals, drew a positive conclusion from her first winter games. “It was great fun.” She was eighth in slopestyle. Like four years ago, the Austrian Anna Gasser became the Olympic champion with 185.50 points ahead of Zoi Sadowski Synnott from New Zealand (177.00) and the Japanese Kokomo Murase (171.50).
Superstar takes second precious metal:
China’s superstar Eileen Gu has won the second medal. After gold in the Big Air discipline, the ski freestyler took silver in the slopestyle competition on Tuesday. In Zhangjiakou, the 18-year-old was only beaten by Swiss rider Mathilde Gremaud. Bronze went to Kelly Sildaru from Estonia. After a crash in the second heat, Gu moved up in the third with 86.23 points. On Thursday she wants to qualify for the final in the halfpipe. The American-born, who starts for hosts China, is one of the most colorful figures of these games. The only German starter, Aliah Delia Eichinger, did not qualify for the finals.
A new Covid case:
The number of corona infections at the Winter Games in Beijing remains at a low level. During the daily checks of all Olympic participants in the bladder, a new infection was discovered among around 70,000 corona tests on Monday, the organizers announced on Tuesday. A total of 433 infections have been detected since the start of travel to the Winter Games on January 23. While at times over 30 infections per day were registered at the beginning of the games, the number of new cases has recently always been in the single digits.
Criticism of the Valiyeva case:
In the case of the 15-year-old figure skater Kamila Valiyeva, the German athletes’ representative Maximilian Klein defended the athlete and criticized the pressure to perform and win medals in top-class sport. “The case makes you sad because there are only losers. But it also makes you angry because it doesn’t come as a surprise,” the representative for international sports policy at the Athleten Deutschland association was quoted as saying by “Spiegel”. Both Russian doping and the exploitation of underage athletes in such sports are “nothing new,” said Klein. Klein said of gold favorite and European champion Valiewa: “It is very unlikely that she is to blame. She is the victim of a system that encourages everyone to produce medals under inhumane conditions.” “The question arises as to how many such cases it takes for something to change in competitive sport”.