Austrian skier Andrea Fischbacher has broken the alpine skiing gold medal duck for her country after blitzing the ladies’ Super-G at Whistler Creekside.

The Austrian team, who have been dealing with uproar and disappointment in Europe after dominating in Torino 2006, will be relieved by the gold medal and will celebrate with Fischbacher, who produced a near flawless performance down the challenging Franz Super-G course.

Four years ago in Torino the Austrian men’s and women’s alpine skiers won 14 medals, including four gold, and the pressure mounted heading into today’s event.

With conditions on the sun baked course improving as the competition advanced Fischbacher was able to take advantage of the stroke of luck.

Wearing bib 19, Fischbacher, competing straight after American Lindsay Vonn had set the quickest time, tore down the mountain to stop the clock at 1:20.14.

Slovenian Tina Maze won the silver medal, some half a second behind the pace, while Vonn won the bronze medal to take her tally to two medals for the Olympic Games.

Fischbacher, who is competing in her second Olympic Games after coming 13th four years ago in the Super G in Torino, finished fourth in the women’s downhill a handful of days ago and had been showing strong form down the slopes of Whistler Creekside.

After winning the medal Fischbacher was overwhelmed.

“It was just great. I didn’t believe it. I was ‘Oh, I won?’ It was just a dream,” Fischbacher said.

“I like the whole course, I like the difficult slope.

“Yes sure, there was some pressure, but I just swallowed it and skied.”

The result concludes Fischbacher’s participation in the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Games, while a number of the women alpine skiers will now line up for the Giant Slalom on Day 13 (Wednesday 24 February)

David Polglase
AOC - Vancouver