Michelle Gisin of Switzerland competes during the women's Alpine combined of Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics at National Alpine Skiing Center in Yanqing District, Beijing, Feb. 17, 2022. (Xinhua/Chen Yichen)
Michelle Gisin of Switzerland recovered from a mistake in the downhill to defend her Olympic title in the women's Alpine combined slalom at Beijing 2022.
YANQING, Beijing, Feb. 17 (Xinhua) -- Michelle Gisin of Switzerland defended her Olympic title in the women's Alpine combined slalom on Thursday at the Beijing Winter Games.
Despite a mistake in the downhill in the morning, Gisin finished first with a total time of 2:25.67, 1.05 seconds ahead of her compatriot Wendy Holdener. Federica Brignone of Italy took bronze in 2:27.52.
The 28-year-old labeled the slalom in the afternoon "one of the [best] slalom runs of my life" after winning the gold.
"Four years ago I did it with my downhill and this time I did it with my slalom," said Gisin, adding that "It's a pity that Mikaela [Shiffrin] did not finish; I would love to have battled for gold with her."
"I didn't think I could put a slalom run together like this after these three weeks, it was so intense. We had some turbulences with the starting squad for the downhill, it was a really hard-fought last four days for me," she continued.
Pre-race favorite Shiffrin of the United States skied off the course in the slalom leg after finishing fifth in the morning's downhill leg.
She had skied out in both the giant slalom and slalom events at the Beijing Winter Olympics. ■
