Canada’s Marielle Thompson takes silver in the freestyle women’s ski cross during the Beijing Winter Olympics.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
For more than half of the women’s ski cross final it looked like Canada wasn’t going to reach the podium for the first time since the sport was introduced to the Olympics in 2010.
But Marielle Thompson’s lengthy career has taught her how to persevere.
The Whistler, B.C., native didn’t pass any of her competitors until the race’s fifth turn, trailing by as much as a second in the course’s early segments. But Thompson bore down to earn silver in a drama-filled big final on Thursday at the Beijing Olympics.
Thompson even closed some distance on gold medalist Sandra Naslund of Sweden despite the Canadian’s slow start.
“In the final, I really just stuck with it because a ski cross race isn’t over until you’re across the finish line,” Thompson said. “So happy I stuck with it and really just focused on what I needed to do to do well.”
Switzerland’s Fanny Smith appeared to win the bronze medal, but she was penalized after a lengthy postrace review found she purposely impeded Germany’s Daniela Maier. The German was awarded the bronze after Smith’s yellow card.
Thompson was pretty sure she wasn’t going to be affected by the review, even though there appeared to be some contact as she passed Maier.
“I didn’t really know what was going on,” Thompson said of the review. “I just hoped that they weren’t reviewing me because I thought my pass was pretty clean.”
Smith was visibly upset after her bronze medal was overturned. She’s the most successful skier in the sport’s history with 56 podiums on the World Cup circuit and 29 victories.
Cameras showed Smith having an animated conversation with an official at the bottom of the ski cross course at Zhangjiakou Genting Snow Park as Maier leaned against an Olympic backdrop nearby. Smith didn’t speak to media afterward, but Maier addressed the controversy.
“It was weird because I was like, ‘Okay, I’m fourth, damn, [expletive].’ I was a bit disappointed, I have to say. And for me in that moment I don’t really know what happened,” said Maier, who won Germany’s first-ever Olympic medal in ski cross.
“The jury decided this way, so I need some more moments to realize that that result is like that and that I won a medal.”
Swiss ski cross coach Rolf Pfaffli took questions in German, French and English after the race and agreed Thompson’s passes were clean. Pfaffli said the judges found Smith intentionally kicked Maier to slow the German down or prevent her from passing.
Pfaffli said 90 per cent of the spectators watching the race would think Smith’s penalty was unfair. He said in English that Swiss Olympic officials were looking into the possibility of an appeal.
“My bosses are on that, but this rule was created that you can’t really appeal this,” Pfaffli said. “We have to see how it’s exactly written because normally there’s no protest about yellow cards, there’s just acceptance that this yellow card happened, like in football. The result will never change.
“The only thing they can do is a review board and then this review board looks at the case and if they say there was no yellow card then the yellow card will be taken back but the result will stay the same.”
However, in French, Pfaffli said the Swiss would not appeal because it would be unfair to Maier to potentially take her medal away.
Marielle Thompson of Canada (centre), Sandra Naeslund of Sweden and Fanny Smith of Switzerland in action during women's ski cross.KIM HONG-JI/Reuters
It was a personal triumph for Thompson, who earned her second Olympic medal after winning gold at the 2014 Sochi Games. She had struggled with injuries since becoming an Olympic champion, rupturing her anterior cruciate ligament and medial collateral ligament in October, 2017, while training for the 2018 Pyeongchang Games.
Thompson tore the same ACL in March, disrupting her 2021-22 training plan. She earned four World Cup podiums since her latest injury, all in the lead-up to Beijing. Thompson won a bronze at Val Thorens on Dec. 12, gold in Arosa, Switzerland, on Dec. 14, bronze in Innichen on Dec. 20 and silver in Nakiska on Jan. 15.
“I kind of found my form in December and then have really been building each and every race,” she said. “I think I brought my best skiing I possibly could here to the Olympics and I couldn’t ask for more than that.”
Canada had won every Olympic women’s ski-cross championship since the sport’s introduction at the Vancouver Games. Ashleigh McIvor (2010), Thompson (2014) and Kelsey Serwa (2018) had won three straight golds for Canada.
Despite not winning a fourth-straight Olympic gold for Canada, it was still a dominant performance for the national ski cross team.
Pyeongchang silver medalist Brittany Phelan of Mont-Tremblant, Que., won the small final to finish fifth. Courtney Hoffos of Windermere, B.C., was sixth and Ottawa’s Hannah Schmidt was seventh.
“I get to train with the best in the world,” said Schmidt, whose brother Jared will compete on Friday in the men’s event. “Four ladies in the top eight? I think that’s the strongest team out there.”
Phelan, Schmidt and Hoffos all spoke about how Canada’s deep roster actually helps them because it makes their training camps like miniature World Cups.
“If someone can’t pull through then someone else will,” Hoffos said. “I think we all push each other so much in training every day and it definitely shows on the world stage.”