Another strong Olympic showing by Crawford in men’s super-G
A day after his fourth-place finish in the downhill, Jack Crawford finished sixth in the super-G, one of two Canadians in the top 10.
Racing under clear blue skies and in ideal, if a little cold at -13 C conditions, Matthias Mayer of Austria skied a flawless run down the 2,267 metre course with its 45 gates to finish in 1:19.94 to successfully defend his Olympic super-G title. That performance came after Mayer almost mis-started his run but was able to catch himself before he activated the timing system.
Ryan Cochran-Siegle finished second in 1:19.98 to give the United States its first ever Olympic medal in the event with Aleksander Aamodt Kilde of Norway, the World Cup leader in the event, was third in 1:20.36.
The 24-year-old Crawford, who missed the downhill podium by 7-100th of a second a day earlier, came roaring out of the start gate and had the fastest time in the super-G through the early gates. But he got pushed slightly offline coming off a mid-course gate, costing him valuable time. He finished in 1:20.79, four-tenths of a second out of third.
READ: Canadian Crawford narrowly misses podium in men’s Olympic downhill
“The course was awesome today, a little bit higher tempo and more in your face than the super-Gs leading into the Olympics and on the World Cup circuit,” Crawford said. “You needed to adapt a bit. But overall it was awesome, really fun to ski.”
Trevor Philp, 29-year-old native of Toronto now living in Calgary recovered from losing his grip on a pole to finish 10th in 1:21.34. It took him a couple of seconds to recover his grip on his left pole as it flapped behind him.
“It felt good and a little messy,” he said of his run. “I knew I had to charge everywhere. Watching the first guys and seeing some great skiers come down without any mistakes but still losing time on splits so I knew it had to be full gas. And I also got inspired by Jack, he just charged so hard and had mistakes without losing much time so I knew that was the mentality I had to go with and that’s what I tried to do.”
Broderick Thompson and Brodie Seger, both of Whistler, B.C., got too much air on the first jump, missed the seventh gate and did not finish.
Seger is in his first Olympics and admitted it’s been both “really cool” and an “eye-opening experience. Coming here it felt like we were stepping out of the World Cup bubble. It gave me a better perspective of the whole picture, which was nice because you get so bogged down in your focus on the World Cup.”
Thompson and Seger were two of several racers who had the same problem and missed the same gate, including Beat Feuz of Switzerland who won the downhill. Of the 47 starters 13 failed to finish the course.
