Olympic history was made Wednesday morning when Tina Maze of Slovenia and Dominique Gisin of Switzerland tied for gold in the women’s downhill. It is the first time the women’s downhill resulted in a tie for gold.
The pair sped down the Rosa Khutor course in 1 minute, 41.57 seconds. A few moments later, the good friends held hands as they stepped up to the top of the podium.
“I’m sure glad I’m going to share this gold with Tina,” said Gisin, who will get a medal all to herself. “She’s such a great woman and one of the greatest athletes of our sport.”
Ties for Olympic gold happened eight times before, but this is a first for Alpine skiing.
Lara Gut of Switzerland won the bronze and was only .10 seconds behind the winners. American Julia Mancuso ended up at eighth place, .99 seconds behind Maze and Gisin.
This is Gisin’s first major medal and Maze ran out of the leader’s box to embrace her in a huge hug. Maze won two silver medals in Vancouver four years ago and Gisin crashed off her final jump. She suffered a concussion, but vowed to be back.
This is also not their first tie. Gisin has won three downhill events, but two were ties. She shared the World Cup victory in 2009 with Anja Paerson of Sweden. Maze was in three-way tie in October 2002 with Andrine Flemmen of Norway and Nicole Hosp of Austria.
The last tie in skiing occurred in men’s super-G at the 1998 Nagano Olympics.
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