Oh no! Roland Filehner's Olympic dream remains unfulfilled

Roland Fischlers Trophy collection is of unbelievable proportions: a world championship title, five more World Cup medals, an overall World Cup victory, four small crystal balls, 19 World Cup victories and 25 more podium finishes. However, his unique career will probably remain without an Olympic crown. On Tuesday he narrowly missed bronze in fourth place at the Winter Games in China.

It just wasn't meant to be for South Tyrol's best snowboarder of all time. In sixth place, he mastered the qualification with flying colors, then eliminated Zan Kosir and Andreas Prommegger in the knockout phase. Up to that point, Filehner wasn't riding flawlessly, but he was extremely fast on his board. The dream of an Olympic medal seemed more real than ever before the semi-finals - but then the end came. “Fisch” made a mistake in the semi-final between the two veterans against 36-year-old Benjamin Karl. While the Austrian made it to the final and later raced to Olympic victory, the South Tyrolean still had hope for bronze.

In the small final he faced Russian gold medalist Victor Wild. Fischlerler got off to a good start, but then repeatedly built up little insecurities in his run and finally retired shortly before the end. His medal dream was shattered! Wild, on the other hand, took bronze, while silver went to Slovenia's Tim Mastnak. He lost out to Karl in the final.

The medals went to Tim Mastnak (l.), Benjamin Karl and Victor Wild (r.). © APA/afp / MARCO BERTORELLO

The other Azzurri had already failed in the round of 16. The Gardena Daniele Bagozza was eliminated against the South Korean qualifying winner Sangho Lee, the Trentino Mirko Felicetti against the Pole Oskar Kwiatkowski. Edwin Coratti missed making it to the knockout phase by a single hundredth. Who if not Ester Ledecka? As she did four years ago in Pyeongchang, Ester Ledecka scored big among the women and won the gold medal. This makes the Czech woman Olympic champion for the third time, in two different sports. In 2018 she won the gold medal in both the parallel snowboard and the Super-G of Alpine skiing, and now she is also causing a sensation in Beijing. And: There could be one or two shows from the all-rounder in the downhill and super-G.

Ledecka, who backed up her claims with the best time in qualifying, did her thing confidently in the knockout heats and secured victory in the final thanks to a solid run against the Austrian Daniela Ulbing. On her way to gold, Ledecka also had in the round of 16 Nadia Ochner , South Tyrol's only representative among parallel snowboarders, was thrown out of the competition. Bronze went to Gloria Kotnik from Slovenia. Result parallel giant slalom men Pos Name Country 1. Benjamin Carl TUE 2. Tim Mastnak SLO 3. Victor Wild RUS 4. Roland Fischller ITA/Villnöß 5. Sangho Lee KOR 6. Andreas Prommegger TUE 12. Mirko Felicetti ITA 15. Daniele Bagozza ITA/St. Ulrich 17. Edwin Coratti ITA/Langtaufers Result of parallel giant slalom women Pos Name Country 1. Ester Ledecka CZE 2. Daniela Ulbing TUE 3. Gloria Kotnik SLO 4. Michelle Dekker NED 5. Ramona Theresia Hofmeister GER 6. Julia Dujmovits TUE 16. Nadia Ochner ITA/Burgstall 29. Lucia Dalmasso ITA

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Oh no! Roland Filehner's Olympic dream remains unfulfilled

The 41-year-old Roland Fiwickeler has won everything there is to win in his career - he is only missing an Olympic medal. And it will stay that way after the Winter Games in Beijing, even though he was very close to winning his longed-for precious metal.

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