Alpine skier Lara Markthaler started her 2024 Youth Winter Olympics campaign with a hugely satisfying effort in the Women’s Super-G event in Gangwon, South Korea, on Sunday.
The 16-year-old is the only Team SA representative at these Youth Olympics and she performed strongly to place 33rd out of 56 starters, of which there were nine who didn’t finish the course.
Gold went to Italy’s Camilla Vanni, silver to Austria’s Eva Schachner and bronze to Switzerland’s Shaienne Zehnder on the Apollo course at the Jeongseon High 1 ski resort. Vanni crossed the finish line clocking 53.54 seconds, while Markthaler timed 57.13sec in her run down the course.
The Super-G race is primarily a speed event, with many of the features of downhill skiing. The course is steeper and straighter than the other slalom events and features longer, more-sweeping turns taken at a higher speed. Just as in downhill, the winner is decided in a single run.
There were six competitors representing the Southern Hemisphere and Markthaler was second on that list, with Argentina’s Jasmine Fernandez placing 12th. However Marthaler out-performed two New Zealanders, a Chilean and an Argentinian and ought to be satisfied with her performance. After the event she returned to the slops to put in some more practice ahead of her next event on Monday.
Markthaler’s schedule and updated results is:
Women’s Super-G: 33rd (57.13sec)
22 Jan: Women’s Alpine Combined Slalom
23 Jan: Women’s Giant Slalom
24 Jan: Official training
25 Jan: Women’s Slalom