He’s one of Norway’s best-loved and most successful winter athletes and now Aksel Lund Svindal has made history by becoming the oldest man to win an Olympic alpine skiing gold and his country’s first in the speed discipline.
The 35-year-old beat close friend and countryman Kjetil Jansrud by 0.12 seconds with Swiss Beat Feuz 0.18 secs back in third in what is often considered the blue riband event of the Winter Olympics.
Svindal has been one of the dominant speed skiers of his generation with multiple world titles and World Cup crowns as well as Olympic super-G gold, downhill silver and giant slalom bronze in Vancouver in 2010.
Olympic downhill gold had always eluded him since he made his debut at the Games in Turin in 2006, but after an injury-plagued recent career he said history didn’t count for much.
“When you cross the finish line and you see that you’ve had a good race and you’re in the medals or even for the gold, you don’t think too much about the history books,” he told reporters afterwards.
“It’s emotional, and being in the Olympics and competing for gold and being able to get it, for me at least those feelings are much stronger than any history ever written.”
Svindal is three months older than Austria’s Mario Matt was when he won the slalom at the age of 34 in Sochi. American Bode Miller became the oldest male medalist when he won bronze at Sochi at the age of 36.
Svindal, who was Norway’s flag bearer at the opening ceremony in Sochi in 2014, suffered a season-ending crash at Kitzbuehel in 2016 and missed the following season after knee surgery.
He has won three times on the World Cup this season but still has to limit his training time to manage the injury .
He admitted in the afterglow of winning gold that his illustrious career was drawing to close.
“I guess this is the beginning of the end somehow, definitely my last Olympics. Nothing is 100% sure but that’s very, very close to being 100% sure,” he added.
The men’s speed skiers will contest the rearranged super-G at the Jeongseon Alpine Centre Friday.