France will not equal its record of 15 medals set at the Pyeongchang Olympics four years ago, but we will remember that the last real hope of the final podium had a frustrating conclusion. The affair was played out on Sunday morning, on the slopes of Yanqing, where the mixed team parallel event, an event that entered the Olympic program four years ago, played the extension of alpine skiing in these Olympic Games after being postponed the watch by the wind.
The French quartet Faivre, Frasse Sombet, Pinturault and Worley, on paper likely to go far, came out in the quarter-finals, against Norway, after eliminating the Czechs (3-1) after breakfast. Four years after being beaten on time by the Scandinavians in the same event for bronze, the Blues were treated to the same blow in China. Here again, the accumulation of the best women’s and men’s times of each team served to decide between them after two sets won on each side. And this time, the tricolors took the door for only… two hundredths.
One route faster than the other
“It goes to very little, loose Mathieu Faivre, in bronze in individual on the giant. Two hundredths is so nothing that it could have gone one way or the other. What made the difference? The canon time of the Norwegian Thea Louise Stjernesund, on the blue route, objectively faster than the red which saw only two victories from the quarter-finals, to get ahead of Tessa Worley.
“There are a lot of things that come into play in this team event, puts the latter into perspective. The faster track, the weather, the opponent in front…” “We could have had a better strategy, but we gave our best. Two hundredths, it goes one way or the other, ”slips Alexis Pinturault, winner of his two oppositions of the day.
Pinturault without a medal for the first time
For the first time, the latter leaves the Olympic Games without a medal, after failed individual events and this last hope too quickly extinguished. A year after winning the big Crystal Globe, the goal that pushed him the most, the skier seems to have achieved it. “I’m really going to have to take time for myself to recover psychologically from all these years,” he slips. This spring will be very important for me to take a step back from all that, from all that I have been able to do so far, and take time to find out what I want to do next. »
At 30, he did not want to comment on whether or not he would be present in 2026 at the Milan-Cortina Games. Tessa Worley will not push until this Italian meeting, and will therefore end her career without an Olympic medal. “For me, the results of these Olympic Games are neither positive nor negative, smiles the athlete from Grand-Bornand. It was a great event which I thoroughly enjoyed. I had some good times with the team, especially this event, and I also had the honor of being the flag bearer. Sportingly, I didn’t manage to do the races I wanted, but I’m happy to have experienced my last Olympics this way. »
Behind her, the Austrians cheer in the finish area as they claim gold against Germany. The Blues leave the mixed zone and the Games. With a taste of unfinished.