LIVIGNO, Italy, Feb 17 (Reuters) – Switzerland’s Mathilde Gremaud is ending her Winter Olympics in a bittersweet manner, having captured another freestyle skiing gold but nursing bruises from a practice run crash that forced her out of a second final on Monday.
The 26-year-old was seen as one of the top medal contenders for big air after retaining her slopestyle Olympic title last week and finishing third in the big air qualifiers two days ago.
“It’s still a big success; it’s just a bummer that it ends like this,” she said in an audio message released on Tuesday by her team while she was still in hospital, waiting to be cleared to go home.
Gremaud, who won slopestyle gold and big air bronze at Beijing 2022 after picking up a slopestyle silver in Pyeongchang 2018, suffered a severe hip contusion but no broken bones.
“I just have to be slow and I cannot really bend on my side and stuff, so it’s okay. I’ll be sore for a while, but nothing broken and nothing that will give my body too much to fight for, I think,” she said.
Gremaud said her main goal for the Milano Cortina Games was winning slopestyle again and, once achieved, she found it hard to focus on the remaining events. The Swiss said she “completely messed up” the jump that led to her crash.
Gremaud’s teammate Anouk Andraska, 22, also pulled out of Monday’s final due to injury in a practice run.
Canada’s Megan Oldham won the big air gold medal, with American-born Chinese superstar Eileen Gu taking silver and host-nation favourite, Flora Tabanelli, claiming bronze.
(Reporting by Alvise Armellini; Editing by Ken Ferris)
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