Catching up in the super station wagon
Furious Forster brings first German para gold
3/7/2022 8:56 am
After an “apparently sleepy” giant slalom, Anna-Lena Forster is almost hopelessly behind in the Paralympic super combination. In the end, the German can still celebrate the first German gold medal at the Paralympics in Beijing.
With a furious second run, monoskier Anna-Lena Forster won Germany’s first gold at the Paralympics in Beijing. Despite being six seconds behind after the Super-G, the 26-year-old from Radolfzell still won the Super-Combined in Pyeongchang in 2018 and after the final slalom was 0.77 seconds ahead of Momoka Muraoka. The Japanese won the first two disciplines in China ahead of Forster.
“Six seconds is quite a number,” Forster said disappointedly after the first discipline: “A medal is certainly still realistic, but I was actually aiming for the gold today.” “To be honest, I don’t know exactly what was going on. But I apparently slept through the run. And Momoka accelerated because she knew that I was stronger in slalom.” How much stronger the German would be was not yet foreseeable.
“Incredible Crazy”
In the end, after a great run, it was still enough to win gold. “Incredible, crazy. It was really a roller coaster ride of emotions,” said Forster: “I know that I can do slalom well, but I never thought I could catch up six seconds.” After the run in the morning she was “very depressed”: “It’s so emotional to get gold after all.” After both runs, Forster shed tears: first out of frustration, then overwhelmed with happiness.
Forster is also the favorite in the slalom on the final day on Sunday. Marburg’s Noemi Ristau in the visually impaired class and Andrea Rothfuss (Mitteltal-Obertal) in the standing class were eliminated in the first round. Anna-Maria Rieder from Murnau took fourth place in Rothfuss’ class.
Linn Kazmaier, just 15 years old, had previously won her second silver medal. The youngest German participant from Römerstein finished second in cross-country skiing for the visually impaired over 15 kilometers in 52:05.6 minutes, just like two days earlier with guide Florian Baumann in the biathlon. “I can’t believe it again,” said Kazmaier. Leonie Walter (54:08.8) also repeated her biathlon placement and won bronze. “It feels good to have the second medal,” said the 18-year-old. As in biathlon, the Paralympic champion was Oksana Schischkowa from Ukraine (51:09.1).