For all of its high speed and spills, Alpine skiing is, in its own way, a controlled, stately affair. After all, each skier gets a fair chance to race down the mountain, uninterrupted and unmolested.
Not so in ski cross.
Four skiers burst out of the start house at the same time and race down the course all at once. Stay in their lanes? Forget it. They go anywhere they like. There is cutting off, bumping and games of high-stakes chicken, and if skiers go down, they are out of luck.
In a race with such a high degree of seeming randomness, where it is so easy to crash, the dominance of Sandra Naeslund of Sweden is simply astonishing.
Naeslund has won 10 of 11 World Cup events this season (in the 11th, she crashed while battling for the lead). Fifth in the 2014 Games in Sochi at age 17, she was the favorite four years ago in Pyeongchang but finished fourth. She came into Thursday’s event as an even bigger favorite, in an event in which heavy favorites are almost unknown.
As expected, she took home the gold, her first at the Games. Winning the silver was Marielle Thompson, of Canada, who won the gold for ski cross at the 2014 Olympics. Daniela Maier, of Germany, won the bronze on Thursday.
On Friday, the men are expected to have the kind of wide-open race that ski cross is typically known for. Look for Bastien Midol and Terence Tchiknavorian of France and Ryan Regez of Switzerland to contend.
If they can stay out of one another’s way.
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