Germany's Maria Riesch staked her claim to the title of most successful female alpine skier of the 2010 Winter Olympics on Friday (Feb. 26), adding a gold medal in the slalom to the gold she won earlier in the super combined.
Riesch, responding to a challenge laid down two skiers earlier by Austria's Marlies Schild, had the fastest time on the first run and was the last skier out of the starting gate for the second.
She started the second run with a 65 hundredths of a second lead over third-place Schild, but after Schild posted the fastest time on the second run - 51.92 seconds - Riesch knew she needed a solid run to take the gold.
She did that, posting the run's third-best time, 52.14, on the second run and finishing with a two-run combined time of 1 minute, 42.89 seconds, 43 hundredths of a second ahead of Schild. Sarka Zahrobska of the Czech Republic captured the bronze medal, 1.01 seconds behind Riesch.
While much of the media attention at the Olympics has focused on American star Lindsey Vonn, Riesch has had a more successful Games with two golds compared to Vonn's gold (downhill) and bronze (super-G). On Friday, Vonn failed to finish for the second straight race, missing a gate in the middle of Friday morning's first run.
Vonn broke a finger when she crashed out of the first run of the giant slalom on Wednesday (Feb. 24) and was skiing on Friday with a brace on the finger. While she said the downhill gold was "the happiest day of my life, period," she said of her two consecutive DNFs, "I am used to the Minnesota and Colorado hard snow. This snow doesn't like me."
Riesch, whose second gold followed a surprise gold medal on Thursday by rising German star Viktoria Rebensburg in the giant slalom, said of her second run on Friday, "I knew the only way to win a gold, or at least a medal, was to go full attack.
"I just can't describe how good it feels (to win two golds in Whistler)," Riesch said. "Of course, I was handled by the media as having a chance to win medals, but to win, everything has to go well for you. To win gold, and to do it twice, is just incredible."
Brigitte Acton of Mont-Tremblant, Que., was the top Canadian finisher, placing 17th. Anna Goodman of Montreal finished 19th, and 19-year-old Erin Mielzynski of Guelph, Ont.- skiing in her first Olympic race - finished 20th.
Acton, 24, who also finished 17th in the slalom at 2006 Olympics in Torino, Italy, finished the first run with the 11th-fastest time. But on the second, she lost time on the bottom half of the course, saying she had some visibility problems.
"The conditions are tough. Especially on the second run, the snow was sticking to my goggles, so the bottom was hard, but that was the same for everybody," Acton said.
"I didn't have as good a second run as the first, but it looks like a lot of us had the same troubles with it. I mean, I'm really disappointed, but at the same time, this energy is definitely lifting me up. I've never felt anything like this."
Mielzynski, who only a few days earlier was training and racing for Canada in Europe, agreed that the crowd was a motivator.
"I didn't know what to expect. I just wanted to have fun and kind of dial it down in terms of the Games atmosphere, and I'm happy with my result," she said.
"I kept feeling the nerves come up and then I would calm down and say, 'There's nothing to lose, this is it.'
"I'm feeding off of the energy of Canada right now," she added. "We race a lot in Europe and we don't get that many chances to have the crowd behind us. It's an amazing experience."
