WTF... Snowboarder Wins Olympic Super G...On Borrowed Skis !

Snowboard World Cup parallel world champion Ester Ledecka of the Czech Republic, who is the first athlete to compete in two different sports at an Olympic Winter Games, crossed the finish line in the ladies’ super-G in absolute disbelief. Wearing bib 26, she charged down the course, not without error, but always with speed under her feet. At the finish line, the scoreboard showed a green light with a 0.01-second advantage over defending gold medalist Anna Veith of Austria. 

Tina Weirather, hoping to duplicate the Olympic gold medals won by her mother at the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid, came down bib 7 and moved atop the leaderboard by 0.01-seconds over Switzerland’s Lara Gut. Weirather’s time held until Veith came down 15th and took the lead by 0.10-seconds.

The celebration for Austria was just getting started when Ledecka gave everyone a reason to look at the venue video board. Leading at the final two splits set the stage for the upset until she caught massive air off the final jump. But after landing on the back of her skis, and rocketing across the finish line, she stunned everyone, including herself, finishing just 0.01-seconds ahead of Veith and winning the first alpine skiing gold medal for the Czech Republic.

The athlete, who had never secured a World Cup podium in alpine skiing but who has handfuls in snowboarding, thought the clock was mistaken. Even after the cameraman in the finish area told her she was the winner, she could not believe the time. 

“How did that happen?” she asked while shaking her head.

Despite being bumped to silver, Veith still completed her incredible comeback story following a two-year return from a devastating knee injury. To even be on the podium was a massive accomplishment for the Austrian who has battled to return to top form on the World Cup circuit. 

Tina Weirather, a regular on the World Cup super-G podium and last season’s discipline standings winner, became the sixth athlete and third woman from Liechtenstein to claim a medal at the Olympic Games with bronze on the day. Weirather now joins her mother, Hanni Wenzel, with a medal of her own.

The race program was delayed by one hour due to strong winds in the morning, but ideal racing conditions ultimately prevailed with clear skies and calmer breezes. 

She said "I was probably the only snowboarder on site. All the other girls didn't risk a lot. There must be a lot of pressure on them. I was just trying to do my best run...

"I saw just my mum. We didn't really understand what happened. I was asking her if it looked good and if I didn't miss any gates. I think they're as surprised as me...I don't know. I am so surprised about all of it. I'm really trying to win and do a good run every time but I didn't really realise that this really can happen." 

In 2017 she became the first sportsperson to compete in World Championships in both skiing and snowboarding, taking a gold in the parallel giant slalom and a silver in the parallel slalom at the Freestyle Ski and Snowboarding World Championships in Sierra Nevada, Spain, and scoring top 30 finishes in he downhill, super-G and alpine combined at the Alpine Skiing World Championships in St. Moritz, Switzerland.

On how she managed to beat the field by one hundredth of a second she added "I really don't know. You tell me. I was riding. I really don't know what happened. It was great."

Seeing No.1 on the scoreboard she thought  "This must be some mistake. That they're going to switch the time for some others."

Whether she believes it now: "No, still not."

One mistake may have cost Lindsey Vonn (Vail, Colo.) a shot at another Olympic medal.

Vonn, running bullet with bib 1, was well on her way to laying down a medal-contending run until she came in wide on the third to final gate, scrubbing precious speed before crossing the line.

“I thought running bib 1 was either going to be really great or really bad, and it didn’t quite turn out the way I’d hoped,” Vonn said. "I left it all out on the hill … I just made one mistake, and that cost me a medal. It’s ski racing, and that’s why it’s so difficult to win at the Olympics because literally, anything can happen.”

Breezy Johnson (Victor, Idaho) finished 14th in her Olympic debut. Laurenne Ross (Bend, Ore.) was 15th, followed by Alice McKennis (Glenwood Springs, Colo.), also making her Olympic debut, in 16th.

“Our results today as a team were amazing,” McKennis said. “I feel good about my run. It wasn’t perfect. I made some mistakes. Unfortunately, one was going into the flats, which is not the best place to make a mistake, but I was pushing and had no hesitation in how I was skiing.”