Fenninger wins Super-G in sun-kissed Sochi

Austrian ‘stunned’ after winning gold in action packed race.

SOCHI:

Austria’s Anna Fenninger swept to gold in an incident-packed, attritional Olympic super-G on Saturday.

Only 12 of the leading 30 women managed to finish the 2.2km-long Rosa Khutor course -- with just three of the first 10 getting safely home. But 24-year-old Fenninger, wearing bib number 18, showed off all of her smooth and technically sound giant slalom skills, conquering the course to clock 1min 25.52sec for victory.

Germany’s Maria Hoefl-Riesch won silver at 0.55sec to go with the gold she won in the super-combined, while combined silver medallist Nicole Hosp of Austria took bronze, a further 0.11sec adrift.

“You have to be so tactical. I can’t describe my emotions, I am really stunned. I didn’t think it was going so well while I was going down,” said Fenninger.

“I was very good up top, not so good at the bottom but in the middle section, there was still the possibility to go faster.”

Switzerland’s Dominique Gisin, who shared gold with Slovenia’s Tina Maze in the downhill, was one of the skiers to crash out while Maze finished fifth just behind downhill bronze medallist Lara Gut of Switzerland.

Sweden take thrilling gold in cross country relay

Sweden on Saturday took a thrilling gold in the women’s 4x5km cross country relay, overtaking Finland and Germany in the last metres for a famous victory. Sweden’s cross country ski star Charlotte Kalla who took the final leg was jumped on in jubilation by her near incredulous teammates when she collapsed on crossing the line.

Kalla overtook Krista Lahteenmaki of Finland and Denise Hermann of Germany with a fearsome sprint in the home straight. Sweden finished on 53min 2.7sec with Finland taking silver 0.5sec behind. Germany took bronze on 53sec 3.6sec.

But there was heartbreak for favourites Norway who could finish only fifth, 53.6sec off the pace.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 16^th, 2014.

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