“I am no longer my own adversary”

Olympic downhill champion at the Beijing Games, the 27-year-old Schwytzer has won five medals in the three major ski events contested since Are 2019. The trigger came during these Worlds in Sweden.



Corinne Suter was crowned Olympic downhill champion in Beijing.


© AFP
Corinne Suter was crowned Olympic downhill champion in Beijing.

We left Corinne Suter upset at the edge of the track last Friday, Lara Gut-Behrami’s day of glory. A failed super-G (13th) and tears of despair, consoled by her friend Jasmine Flury. But Corinne Suter, reigning downhill world champion, rallied to win the Olympic queen event in Beijing.

“I can’t really realize and this day is so fabulous, dropped the Schwyzoise following her coronation. It was weird, I felt like the front of my ski was lifting due to the headwind but I’m not going to complain.

The super-G, which takes place without prior training, was not the ideal event to launch its first Olympic Games. “I’m a skier who works a lot on my feelings,” she explained. So it was beneficial to be able to ski the track two or three times following the super-G. I was able to fine-tune my settings.

The 27-year-old skier notably prepared for her Olympic downhill by analyzing that of the men, who had crowned Beat Feuz at the start of the fortnight. “I looked at his key passages, we also exchanged a little, she said. But in the end I wanted to listen to myself and follow my own intuition.

The turning point in her career came in 2019. While she had never been on a World Cup podium, the Schwyzoise had won two medals (silver in downhill and bronze in super-G) at the World Championships. Are. “Since this event, I finally believe in myself when I was my own opponent before and I underestimated myself, underlined the Swiss. In Are, I took a big step forward.”

Like Lindsey Vonn

The season following her double world feat, Corinne Suter lifted the two speed crystal globes, before being crowned downhill world champion in Cortina d’Ampezzo in February 2021. In the Dolomites, the Swiss also won the silver in super-G, behind her compatriot Lara Gut-Behrami.

But the start of this Olympic season had started very badly for Corinne Suter, who had suffered a heavy fall in training on the Saas-Fee glacier which made her doubt for her season. “It was really hard, recalled moved the Swiss. My body was fine and healthy, but not my head!”

In the three major events since 2019, the Swiss has amassed five medals, including two titles. “However, I’m still looking to ski as usual even though I was a little more nervous than normal this morning,” she revealed. The 27-year-old champion is the only woman, along with Lindsey Vonn, to have managed to win the world and Olympic title in one year in the past forty years. “Lindsey (Vonn) is a source of inspiration because I like the way she skis, explained the Schywtzoise. I like how she moves her body, the aggressiveness she puts in her turns.

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