It was a fairy tale at the women’s super-G in PyeongChang — but not for Lindsey Vonn.
The greatest female ski racer of all time, one of the favorites for the event, finished sixth in a magnificent race won by Ester Ledecka of the Czech Republic.
Ledecka was the 26th skier to compete, making her victory all the more surprising as it’s usually harder to ski down a course later in the race, after previous skiers have chewed up the course on their way down.
Ledecka pipped reigning gold medalist Anna Veith of Austria to gold by a hair thin 0.01-second margin.
Veith looked set to become the first woman to defend an Olympic super-G title until Ledeka’s sensational run, clocked at one minute 21.11 seconds.
Liechtenstein’s Tina Weirather, whose mother Hanni Wenzel is a former Olympic champion, took bronze.
Ledecka’s medal is all the more impressive considering she’s expected to become the only athlete to ever compete in both skiing and snowboarding at the Games.
Vonn, the first to start the race, saw her dreams of a podium finish dashed early on, with Italy’s Johanna Schnarf (third to start), Switzerland’s Lara Gut (fifth to start) and Liechtenstein’s Tina Weirather (seventh to start) outperforming her.
Competing in her fourth Winter Games, the veteran American clocked in at 1:21.49, 0.38 seconds behind Ledecka at the Youngpyong Alpine Centre.
High winds on Saturday delayed the start of an event which had already been rescheduled from earlier in the week because of the weather.
Three of the first four races in the Alpine program were postponed this week after winds of up to 72kph wreaked havoc with the schedule.
Vonn still has a chance of winning an Olympic title at these Games, likely to be her last.
The four-time world champion, super-G bronze medalist in 2010, will compete again on Wednesday in the downhill and victory would make her only the third American alpine skier to win three career Olympic medals.
Snowboard specialist Ledecka has never finished on the podium in World Cup events, her best result being a seventh-placed finish in the downhill last year.
In her most recent super-G run, in Austria in January, the Czech came 24th.
Ledecka is now set to compete in the snowboard parallel giant slalom on Thursday, February 22.
