Mixed Olympic fortune
In the 1988 Nagano Winter Games, Michaela Dorfmeister claimed silver in the super-G event. She lost out on the gold by one hundredth of a second. Four years later, at the Salt Lake City Winter Games, she suffered disappointment as she finished out of the medals in the four events she had entered.
Near miss
Dorfmeister almost didn’t take part in the Turin Winter Games. Twenty days beforehand, she narrowly missed having a terrible accident, only just avoiding a member of the ski patrol who crossed in front of her on a run in St Moritz.
Turin success
In Turin, Dorfmeister found her form and won gold in the downhill event, finishing ahead of Swiss Martina Schild. This made her the first Austrian woman to win the women’s downhill since 1980. Five days later, it was the super-G event. Competing in atrocious conditions, Dorfmeister put on a superb display to win in convincing style and claimed her second gold.
The double
Dorfmeister was the first woman to win the double in the speed events in alpine skiing, downhill and super-G, since the introduction of the super-G on the Olympic Games programme in 1988. Having already announced her imminent retirement three months later, her two Olympic gold medals were the ultimate way to finish her extraordinary career.