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": Fourth place for Kira Weidle, who started the Olympic women's downhill race this Tuesday with such high hopes.

"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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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 inner 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.

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.

It should last a while longer.

After her second place in the downhill from Zauchensee in mid-January and her strong training performance on the Olympic slope, Weidle, second at the World Championships last year behind Corinne Suter, was again considered a medal candidate.

But like her teammate Lena Dürr, she was only fourth in the slalom.

"Why?" This question had to be worked through.