Not much was missing, and the German alpine team would have even won five gold medals at the end of the Olympic Games.

So one, but in five versions for Lena Dürr, Emma Aicher, Julian Rauchfuss, Alexander Schmid and Linus Straßer.

Achim Dreis

sports editor.

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But they could also be very satisfied and happy with silver in the mixed team competition on Mount Xiaohaituo.

"The medal is extremely good for us," confessed Wolfgang Maier, the Alpine Director of the German Ski Association.

In the end only a blink of an eye was missing to gold.

The hitherto unlucky German ski racers won silver in the mixed team competition on the final day of the Olympic Winter Games in China.

In the final on Sunday they lost by 0.19 seconds against Austria with a score of 2:2 in the addition of the best times.

Emma Aicher, Lena Dürr, Alexander Schmid, Linus Straßer and Julian Rauchfuss won Germany's first alpine medal at the Olympics in eight years.

“There was no question that we were motivated.

The medal is extremely good for us," said sports director Wolfgang Maier on ARD.

“From my point of view, we had made good advance performances, we were often just off the mark.

There's a certain bitterness for everyone, especially for the athletes, when you finish fourth and fifth and you can only watch the medals being handed out to others," he concluded.

The competition had been postponed by one day due to wind.

But even on Sunday there were sometimes violent gusts on Xiaohaituo Mountain.

After a confident 3-1 win against Sweden, the Germans defeated Olympic champions Switzerland in the quarter-finals.

Aicher and Straßer did not finish, but the addition of the individual times of the best man and the best woman gave the score of 2:2 in favor of the German Ski Association (DSV) team.

In the semifinals, this then defeated the USA with exceptional driver Mikaela Shiffrin 3:1, who only finished fourth with her team and thus remained without a medal at the Beijing Games.

In the final, Straßer decided not to play in favor of Rauchfuss because, according to his own statement, he had had problems with the low speed and the changing course.

“I think the event showed that it has a certain class, that it is extremely exciting.

The hundredth issue is haunting us.

But we are extremely happy that we didn't go home without a medal and that we were also able to make our contribution to Team D," said sports director Maier.

Previously, the best results of the German Alpine at the games in China were the fourth places of Dürr in the slalom and Kira Weidle in the downhill.

As in 2018 in Pyeongchang, they threatened to go completely empty-handed.

In 2014 in Sochi there were still three medals for the German alpine team.

Back then, Maria Höfl-Riesch won gold in the combination and silver in the super-G, Viktoria Rebensburg won bronze in the giant slalom.