AWhen Corinne Suter won two medals at the World Ski Championships in Are four years ago, a teammate was by her side in the hustle and bustle. Jasmine Flury, Suter once said, made sure that she got something to eat during these stressful two days. “She’s my best friend, not only in the ski circus, but also in life.” Now Suter has to look for someone else to take care of her after the bronze medal in the downhill on Saturday. Flury is definitely out because she now needs support herself as the first Swiss gold medalist at the World Championships in Courchevel/Meribel.
When the 29-year-old from Graubünden took the lead’s seat on Saturday, no one suspected that no one would ever oust her from there. Flury started the race with start number two, and there were still enough athletes who have been more successful and better so far. She had only won one World Cup race, a Super-G five years ago at home in St. Moritz. She achieved the best downhill result of her career up to Saturday, a second place, last year in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
Kira Weidle is eighth
Before the World Cup, Flury later said, she was ill. But here in France she felt more comfortable every day. On the morning of the descent, she was “very relaxed. I was just happy to be able to drive on this beautiful track,” said Flury. The “Roc de Fer”, the iron rock, in Meribel was not kind to the favourites. The Austrian Nina Ortlieb was perhaps not one of them, too often she had recently failed due to her nerves. But she came close to Flury, was only four hundredths of a second slower and didn’t quite know what to make of it.
By the time Sofia Goggia started, Flury was probably getting ready to vacate the chair. The Italian has won four out of six World Cup downhill races this season, but she’s always good for a breakdown. Not everything went smoothly this time either. Goggia stumbled just before the finish, threaded and was disqualified.
Then Suter came. The defending champion and Olympic champion started the season with a win, then lost a bit of form and finally had to deal with a fall. She also stayed behind and ended up in third place. Next up was Kira Weidle, the German who came to the Worlds with big medal ambitions but was also behind by the second split and ended up eighth. “Perhaps Flury was just lucky with the start number,” said the 26-year-old from Starnberg. In any case, she has nothing to blame herself for. “That was really a good, committed ride from me,” Weidle thought.
When Ragnhild Mowinckel from Norway and teammate Lara Gut-Behrami, who was also rated higher, were also slower, Flury began to cry. There was only one thing that she seriously had to fear: Ilka Stuhec, world champion from 2017 and 2019, is on the way back to her old strength after a few injuries and a change of equipment this season. But the Slovenian also failed at the Eisenfelsen and finished sixth.
“Sharing the moment with Corinne is fantastic,” said Flury after the last of the 29 starters had crossed the finish line. So far, she has mostly been overshadowed by Suter and Gut-Behrami. And maybe many thought that at 29 their prime was over.
But tenacity has accompanied Flury since childhood. She grew up on a farm in a small village near Davos. When the two older sisters started skiing, little Jasmine also really wanted to get on the skis – and until now she describes skiing as her passion. Her website reads: “I feel free. I feel happy. Skiing is what I love doing the most.” She also skied best on Saturday.
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