It seemed like the Race was over until BIB number 26 Ester Ledecka comes down personal best to win the Super G Gold.
I want to start at the bottom with Lindsey Vonn’s mistake. She comes in carrying a lot of speed. She gets low on one turn and doesn’t make the correction… This is a really flat section of the course. And we can see here, she gets stuck in this position, inside, rotated, and back! She’s got no power… All of her weight is behind that ski. She’s completely out of position. She has no chance to make a recovery right now. The problem with this position is it is not a quick recovery at all. She gets up and continues but she loses so much time on the last split it takes her from likely a gold medal to off from the podium.
Let’s take a quick look at the situation that led to Vonn’s mistake and also to Ledecka’s win. Ledecka comes really straight here, she’s open and she’s catching air. Vonn is high on the travers with a nice tuck. Vonn carries a ton of speed in this last section. Ledecka because of the mistake, ends up swinging out wider here, taking a more conservative line. Vonn dives in really direct carrying a ton of speed. Now she is pulling away right here but she loses a little pressure out of the top of that little roll, making a very aggressive move and diving in and trying to carry that speed from the last jump… She gates rotated inside makes the big mistake that cost her the medal.
Now, Ledecka, on the other hand, skied more conservatively after her mistake up above and she’s in a low position tucking off the last jump… She opens up on the last jump showing a little bit of her inexperience but skies down to her Olympic Gold Medal.
What an incredible result for Ester Ledecka, who also will be competing at this Olympics in the parallel snowboarding GS. My heart goes to Anna Veith who lost the gold medal by 0.01 of a second.
Eurosport, Casa delle Olimpiadi
https://twitter.com/Eurosport/status/965059022016532480
