Maren Lundby with a lucky escape in the team event
Maren Lundby could praise higher powers for escaping a nightmarish repetition of the individual ski jumping event at the Pyeongchang Olympics last year. Norway won a historic bronze medal.
The Norwegian ski jumping queen from Bøverbru fell during training the day before she won her historic Olympic gold medal in South Korea last year. Tuesday was a hairsbreadth away from becoming a carbon copy.
In the first jump during the team event in Seefeld, she was pressed down in the landing. and she barely avoided an unsteadiness in the outrun.
“I have the habit of doing that on the hill the day before a championship,” Lundby grins to NTB when she is asked to describe the near-disastrous episode.
The individual ski jumping event for women in Seefeld, Austria is on Wednesday.
Crashed one ski into the other
Lundby describes the scary landing as follows:
“There is a lot of force involved in such a long jump. I crashed one of the skis into the other; but somehow managed to stay upright,” the World Championships favourite smiles.
“Did you have time to think?”
“No, I didn’t,” Lundby replies. She believes that a combination of skiing skills and luck helped save the day.
“It was a good mix between those, I believe. I did a lot of cross country skiing when I was a kid, and played around a lot on skis, but it was probably a good deal of luck involved as well. It was sufficient to stay on my feet,” she asserts.
The heart in her stomach
Lundby does not try to hide how close it was for the team competition to end in tears. It had not only destroyed the medal chances for Norway – It could even have jeopardised her participation in the individual event.
“It was as close as you can get without falling,” the 24-years-old athlete continues.
“You had a lucky escape?”
“You may very well say that, but it is something that one must take into consideration. It would have been a somewhat typical Lundby fall,” she concludes.
the Boss of Norwegian ski jumping, Clas Brede Bråthen, had his heart in his stomach.
“It is a bit weird how many thoughts you can have during the nanoseconds you see the knee pointing in. That it ends well is due to skiing skills and general physical condition. There are athletes who have injured themselves enough to put an end to their career after such outruns, ”Bråthen sighs with relief.
© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today
