In the end, 14 hundredths of a second were missing from a medal, the equivalent of just four meters on the 2704 meter long "Silk Road", the speed course at the Olympic Games in Beijing: Fourth place for Kira Weidle, who had such high hopes for the Olympic women's downhill race started this Tuesday.

"Man" was the 25-year-old's first reaction when she saw the number that stands for disappointment at the Olympic Games and other major events like no other: four.

There followed a long shake of the head and the question: Where had she lost the time?

Achim Dreis

sports editor.

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"I felt pretty good," Weidle said of her ride.

"A few mistakes here and there", but that's part of a high-speed race: "That's always the case." That the race could be influenced by the sometimes gusty wind, which already caused the descent to start half an hour late she did not want to accept.

"We have wind, we have sun", that's just the way it is with an outdoor sport.

Gold was won by world champion Corinne Suter from Switzerland, who completed the "Silk Road" in Yanqing in a time of 1:31.87 minutes and thus saved a 0.16 second lead over the indestructible Italian Sofia Goggia.

Not much was missing and Goggia, who had suffered a torn cruciate ligament and a torn tibia head in a fall in Cortina d'Ampezzo a few weeks ago, would have raced to gold again at the Beijing Games, just like four years ago in Pyeongchang .

But even with silver, the performance of the Italian, who was still on crutches a few weeks ago, seemed incredible.

And bronze?

Went to the Italian Nadia Delago, who had never finished on a podium in the World Cup but now presented the ride of her life in Yanqing.

At the finish, the 24-year-old was 0.57 seconds behind Sutter, but - more importantly - 0.14 ahead of the following German Kira Weidle.

On course for a medal at all times

The athlete from Stuttgart, who started for SC Starnberg, had shown a good ride and was practically on course for a medal from top to bottom, but she missed half a second in the last section of the course.

The intermediate times had all pointed to at least bronze, if not silver: 0.21 seconds behind in the second time measurement, 0.28 in the third, and finally 0.23 in the fourth - these were the throughput times for Kira Weidle.

But at the finish it was suddenly 0.71.

The search for lost time began.

At first glance, she had leaned too far inwards on the exit of the steep slope into the final flat section, so she could not keep the necessary pressure from the outside ski and had to choose a slightly wider line compared to the medal winners.

A small difference that ultimately had a big impact and cost me the long-awaited medal.

"Extremely bitter," said the skier herself. Last year's World Cup runner-up was again considered a medal candidate after her second place in the World Cup downhill from Zauchensee in mid-January and her strong training performance on the Olympic slope.

But the conditions had changed compared to the practice runs, the route had been cleared of fresh snow and was therefore harder again.

In the end, Kira Weidle, like her teammate Lena Dürr, only finished fourth in the slalom.

"The nice thing is that everyone congratulates," she said after what was undoubtedly a good run.

But she wasn't really happy about it.

"I could have done better.

It's extremely bitter.

I wanted to go home with a medal."