A disappointing start to her third Winter Olympics isn't going to keep Fernie's Emily Brydon down for long.
Brydon, probably the best Canadian hope for a women's alpine skiing medal coming into the Games, skied a solid slalom leg Thursday (Feb. 18) in the women's super combined event at Whistler Creekside as part of her effort to, as she termed it, "rekindle the spirit" and finish her Games with a flourish.
She admitted her 16th-place result in Wednesday's (Feb. 17) downhill and her downhill run during the first stage of Thursday's race - where she had the 15th-best time in the field - were somewhat disappointing. But her slalom run, in which she had the 16th-best time, felt better.
"If you think about the negatives you'll never get anywhere. You have to keep looking ahead," Brydon said.
"I'm going into Saturday's (Feb. 20) super G to win. That's my whole focus now."
Brydon, currently ranked fifth in the World Cup downhill standings and 10th in combined, finished 14th on Thursday and was the second Canadian behind Shona Rubens of Canmore, Alta. Rubens is ranked 16th in the world in combined.
Maria Riesch of Germany, who posted the second-best time in the field in Thursday's downhill, captured the gold medal when American Lindsey Vonn has a slight mishap going around a gate and skied off the course.
Vonn, the downhill gold medalist on Wednesday, led Riesch by 33 hundredths of a second entering the slalom. She lost time to Riesch early in her run, though, leading by just seven hundredths after the first interval, and never made it to the second as she caught a ski going around a gate. The pull of the gate on her leg made her lose her balance and ski wide.
"It was disappointing but I went down fighting," Vonn said.
Asked whether she felt sorry for Vonn when the mishap occurred, Riesch said, "To be honest, in the first moment you're just happy that you won the race, but then afterward I felt bad for her."
Riesch said the gold medal was satisfying after a disappointing eighth-place finish in the downhill.
"I don't know why, but I just couldn't find a good feeling on my skis," she said of Wednesday's race, "but today it was much better and the day was perfect for me."
American Julia Mancuso, who placed second behind Vonn in the downhill, also captured the silver medal on Thursday. Heretofore known mostly as a speed skier, Mancuso posted the eighth-best slalom time in Thursday's race and finished the two runs in 2:10.08, 94 hundredths of a second behind Riesch.
Sweden's Anja Paerson, getting back on her skis after a horrific crash near the finish of Wednesday's downhill, captured the bronze, finishing 11 hundredths behind Mancuso.
Rubens finished in 2:12.58, 3.54 seconds behind the winner, and Brydon's two-run time was 2:12.76, 3.62 seconds behind R
