Sochi: Ukrainian athletes won an emotional first gold of the Sochi Games for their violence-wracked nation on Friday as defending champions Canada saw off the United States in a tight ice hockey semi-final.
Ukraine’s victorious women’s biathlon team dedicated their triumph to a nation grieving over violence that has claimed dozens of lives.
The president of Ukraine’s Olympic Committee, former pole vault great Sergey Bubka, said the gold medal could help unite his country and bring peace after days of clashes between security forces and protesters.
The team led from the start in the 4x6km relay race, finishing in 1hr 10 min 2.5 sec, defeating second-place Russia by 26.4 seconds. Norway took the bronze.
“We are proud of them. We supported from the stands with our ribbons of grief and our flags on which were written, ‘For Peace! For Ukraine!’” said Bubka.
“We dedicate this victory to all the Ukrainian people. I believe that in this hard time for the country this medal can unite us and make peace, calm and prosperity reign in Ukraine,” he added.
With an Olympic gold medal around her neck at the age of 18, American skier Mikaela Shiffrin is pure gold dust for a sport preparing to wave goodbye to a generation of greats.
Under the glare of the floodlights at Rosa Khutor on Friday, the teenager known on the circuit as the “Mozart of Skiing” produced a high-speed waltz through the gates to become the youngest ever Olympic slalom champion.
In facing down some of the world’s most experienced slalomists to top the podium, despite a near wipeout halfway through her second run, the precocious talent from Colorado proved she is a worthy leader of the new generation.
With US ski team glamour girl Lindsey Vonn, who will be 33 at the next Olympics, rehabilitating after knee surgery, Bode Miller and Julia Mancuso in the twilight of their glittering careers, and double Olympic champion Ted Ligety peaking, Shiffrin’s emergence could not have been better timed. Her impact will go far beyond the United States though.
Germany’s three-times Games gold medallist Maria Hoefl-Riesch has skied her last Olympic run while Austria’s Marlies Schild, who has a record 35 World Cup slalom wins, is nearing the end after finishing second behind Shiffrin on Friday.
In the sport’s Alps heartland, where top ski racers are revered as A-list celebrities, Shiffrin, along with Swiss Lara Gut and Austria’s Anna Fenninger, will help drive the popularity of Alpine skiing in the face of fierce competition from snowboarders and freestylers.
Pretty, articulate and media-savvy, she is the dream ticket for the marketing men who will be forming long queues for her signature over the coming months.
She is also refreshingly straightforward about her sport, slaloming with a fearless natural flair that cannot be taught from ski manuals alone. “She just loves to ski slalom,” her mother Eileen, who was her first coach and who has travelled Europe with her daughter since she was 15, said on Friday.
Hoefl-Riesch, who trailed in fourth behind Shiffrin, believes the American has the tools to one day dominate across all disciplines.
“Mikaela is going to win many, many races, I’m sure this is only the beginning,” said Hoefl-Riesch, who has watched Shiffrin’s rise from close quarters.
