By Simon Jennings
YANQING, China (Reuters) – On Tuesday morning, exactly 23 days after a crash in Cortina d’Ampezzo left her on crutches, Sofia Goggia woke up, downed some painkillers and lined up for the women’s downhill race at the Winter Olympics.
By afternoon the Italian skier was mounting the podium to collect her silver medal, capping the most unlikely comeback after finishing 16 hundredths of a second behind winner Corinne Suter of Switzerland.
Goggia, the Pyeongchang 2018 gold medallist and dominant force in downhill this season, injured the cruciate ligament in her left knee during last month’s crash and it was touch and go whether she would be able to race in China.
She even pulled out of Friday’s super-G to give herself the best chance of defending her Olympic title.
“Compared to the other days when I didn’t have so many painkillers, today I decided to take some for the race in order just to ski free mentally,” Goggia said.
“It was the first day on this downhill that I had some pain. On the big turn … at the top of the race I was really leaning inside and the angle of my knee was really closed and ‘whoah’ that was painful.
“But that was just a second and a half and then I just skied. When you really have the rush of adrenaline pain is something that you cannot hear.
“Physically I’m not in shape, I couldn’t charge. I’m not able to move as I want but I know that when I put my skis on and when I put the ski boots in the binding, I’m connected with my skis and I just have to try to be smooth.”
The 29-year-old added that just making it to China was a victory in itself.
“Sometimes things don’t work as you want. But I really gave everything I could … I had no room for doubts,” she said.
“I always said to myself that if I could endure and overcome the period that separates me from Cortina to China then the downhill itself would be the easiest part. This is why I’m really grateful and glad for this medal.”
Goggia said her injury had given her fresh perspective, which made it easier to accept her second-placed finish.
“(It taught me) to accept myself the way I am even if the outcome is not the one I hoped for. In the end … your value as a human being is not determined by the medal that you get,” she added.
“Instead you have to be constant and well aware about your being. It’s because of that you ski fast.
“I wasn’t scared,” she added. “I had to pick myself back up one way or another. I put all the effort that I could into this and it worked it out.”
Goggia was faster down the course dubbed ‘The Rock’ than the 12 racers before her, and celebrated her run with a visceral scream and a kiss for the TV camera in the finish are. But she knew in her heart even then that it might not be enough.
“When I saw the green light … of course I exploded,” she said. “But at the same time I knew I wasn’t so fast, because in some parts, I had also some wind against me … I cannot control the wind.”
(Reporting by Simon Jennings, additional reporting by Shadia Nasralla; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
