Norway earned its first-ever medal in a FIS Alpine World Ski Championship Mixed Team Event, striking gold in an action-packed race.
Norway edged Sweden in the Big Final in a nail-biter that saw a rare re-run as Norwegian Sebastian Foss Solevaag and Swede Kristoffer Jakobsen came close to colliding in their round, causing the jury to issue the order for the re-run.
“Jakobsen went on my inside ski and I saw it in my vision that, OK, he’s going there, like falling in, and I’m not risking my health and my legs for this so then I stopped right away,” Foss-Solevaag said.
Foss Solevaag came through big in the re-run, earning the rare victory on the blue course, which proved to be the difference between gold and silver.
“We showed them that we are strong without big stars here too so it’s really fun for the whole team,” said Foss-Solevaag.
The silver medal gives Sweden more medals in the mixed team event than any other nation in the history of the event, only missing the podium twice since 2005. Today was a bit of redemption for the Swedes as one of the two times they missed the podium was in 2019 on home snow in Are (SWE).
“We didn’t come here as a favorite team so we are super happy to walk away with a medal”, Sara Hector said.
The surprise of these World Championships, Germany, continued its medal roll, earning the bronze medal by a razor-thin margin against Switzerland. Switzerland entered today’s race as the defending World Champion, but the switch from the mixed team event being staged as a giant slalom meant there weren’t many familiar faces on the Swiss squad to defend that title. In fact, all three medalists from 2019, Switzerland, Austria, and Italy, failed to make the podium again this year.
“It was Perfect (...) The last two weeks are great days for team Germany. It’s one of the best world championships for team Germany. We will enjoy it and we will celebrate it”, said Alexander Schmid.
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