Big Performance in the Alpine Combined Slalom at the Youth Olympics
A clean fast slalom run from Team Ireland’s Alpine Skier Matt Ryan saw the seventeen year old jump twenty places in the Alpine Combined today, to finish 25th overall with a time of 1:34.11 at the Winter Youth Olympic Games in Lausanne, Switzerland. Fast and icy conditions caused over twenty athletes to DNF, making his performance even more impressive.
At the top of today’s podium were Auguste Aulnette (France) and Mikkel Remsoey (Norway) who clocked the exact same time and were both awarded the gold medal, with yesterday’s gold medallist Adam Hofstedt (Sweden) taking bronze.
His time of 35.41 in the Alpine Slalom put Ryan in seventeenth place in today’s event, and once combined with yesterday’s 45th place in the Super G time of 58.7 the Irish man saw his overall standing jump an incredible twenty places.
Speaking after his race, Ryan was happy with his performance, and is intent on building on it for his remaining races in Lausanne,“It was a little better today; I think I can still push it a little more so I’m looking forward to the slalom on Tuesday.”
The tricky conditions on the mountain today led to a particularly icy a difficult course, where 21 athletes were marked as DNF out of the 57 starters. Describing the course Ryan said, “At the top it was a little turny and pretty icy, so I needed to stay over my feet and be quick back and forth. There’s a big bump in there so that’s a little tricky coming over. You’ve got to stay on your feet, and towards the end try to push the line a bit and gain some speed.”
The Slalom is Massachusetts based Ryan’s favoured event, and he plans on building on today’s performance in the individual Slalom race on the 14 January, “It was great to get a run on the hill before the real race, so on Tuesday I need to be a little more forward on my skis. I’ll be ready for Tuesday.”
Emma Austin will make her Team Ireland Games debut tomorrow when she competes in the Giant Slalom. The New Hampshire based athlete competed at the Junior World Championships last year, and also in Lacrosse for Ireland, and will be taking to the slopes at 09:00 Irish time for Run 1; Run 2 takes place at 11:45.
The Youth Olympics run from the 9-22 January with all the Irish interest occurring between 10 – 14 January with Alpine Skiers Matt Ryan and Emma Austin.
They are competing in the third edition of the Winter Youth Olympic Games, with the Alpine Skiing taking place in the ski resort, Les Diablerets.
The Winter Youth Olympic Games have complete gender balance, with the same number of males and females competing, and they are a sustainable-games with athletes and competitors using existing transport systems. Over the course of the games almost 1900 athletes are competing in 8 sports, which cover 16 disciplines and 81 sporting events! To maximise sustainability the sports are run in waves, with Alpine Skiing featuring in the first wave.
Footage from competition at the Youth Olympics can be found on the LAUSANNE 2020 website and on the OLYMPIC CHANNEL.
The Winter Youth Olympics in Lausanne, Switzerland will be the first of two major events for Team Ireland in 2020, with the Summer Olympics taking place in Tokyo later this year.
RESULTS
Gold Adam Hofstedt (SWE) 54.56
Gold Rok Aznoh (SLO) 54.62
Bronze Luc Roduit (SUI) 54.76
25th Matt Ryan (IRL) 58.70
