Super G, Women

The women’s Super G was the third women’s Alpine skiing event contested in PyeongChang, after the giant slalom and slalom. A World Cup Super G was held on this track in March 2017, which was won by Sofia Goggia, with Lindsey Vonn in second, and Ilka Štuhec, who did not compete at PyeongChang due to an ACL injury to her left knee, in third. The ongoing Super G World Cup saw different winners in all six races with Weirather winning in Lake Louise, Flury in St. Moritz, Vonn (Super G World Cup winner in 2014/15) and Veith in the Val d’Isère double, Brignone in Bad Kleinkirchheim and Gut in Cortina d’Ampezzo. Gut, winner of the Super G Crystal Globe in 2013/14 and 2015/16 and the bronze medalist in this event at the 2017 World Championships, topped the current standings. She was followed by Weirather, the 2016/17 Super G World Cup winner and silver medalist from the 2017 Worlds, and Schnarf in third. The reigning World Champion was Nicole Schmidhofer, who had struggled with injuries in the last two seasons, and the gold medalist from Sochi as well as from the 2015 World Championships, Anna Veith, was back for this season. Maria Höfl-Riesch and Nicole Hosp, the other two medalists from Sochi, had both since retired.

The starting order for speed events was changed since the last Olympics. The top 10 racers of the World Cup Starting List (WCSL), beginning with the leader, could choose an odd bib number from 1-19, while the next ten racers from the WCSL could choose an even bib number from 2-20. Because of the multiple delays with windy conditions, there were no downhill training runs before this race.

The weather was sunny, but still cold at -9° C. at the start and the gusty winds were still a factor. After seven racers Weirather was in the lead, just 0.01 seconds ahead of Gut, who was also only another 0.03 seconds ahead of Schnarf. The changing winds meant that not all skiers had the same conditions, but with bib #15 Veith took the lead, 1/10th of a second faster than Weirather. It looked like a fairytale that Veith could win gold after missing almost two seasons due to a multiple ligament right knee injury in October 2015 and another surgery in her left knee due to a chronic inflammation in February 2017.

Ester Ledecká in bib #26, however, ended this dream and a new fairytale started. Ledecká, whose best World Cup Super G result ever at this point was twice 19th, was only 0.01 seconds faster than Veith to win the most surprising Alpine skiing gold at this Games. Her winning speed was 89.21 km/h and at the end Ledecká was only 25 cm. ahead of Veith.

Ledecká, who was already a double snowboarding World Champion, went on to also win gold in the snowboarding parallel giant slalom seven days later to win a unique and unusual double at the Olympics, becoming the first ever woman (summer and winter) to win two gold medals in two different sports at the same Olympics. She was also the first ever Alpine skiing Olympic champion from the Czech Republic, breaking the Austrian domination in this event, who had won the last three titles.

The bronze medal won by Weirather was the first ever Super G medal for Liechtenstein and the first Olympic medal (summer and winter) for this country since Paul Frommelt won bronze in slalom back in 1988. For her win Ledecká used Atomic skis loaned to her by Mikaela Shiffrin, who did not participate in this race, while Veith and Weirather skied Head. Ledecká also created the most comical press moment at these Games, when she appeared at the press conference wearing her ski goggles. She later explained that she never expected to win a medal and so she was not made up.