By Marleen Kaesebier
BORMIO, Italy, Feb 21 (Reuters) – French world champions Emily Harrop and Thibault Anselmet won the inaugural Olympic ski mountaineering mixed relay title on Saturday after leading from the first lap.
They took 26 minutes 57.44 seconds to traverse up and down the 1.41 km course. The pair had already won Olympic medals in their respective sprint events on Thursday, Harrop placing second in the women’s and Anselmet third in the men’s.
Switzerland’s Marianne Fatton and Jon Kistler took the silver medal spot 11.86 seconds behind, with Spain’s Ana Alonso Rodriguez and Oriol Cardona Coll in bronze position.
It was all or nothing as one of the last Winter Games events saw all 12 teams start at the same time for a final SkiMo race.
With one team per nation, made up of one woman and one man, each athlete had two laps each to battle it out with the other teams – and build on their counterpart’s position.
The women first took to the starting line to ascend 135 metres in total and descend the same distance.
Slightly longer than the sprint course, the laps take around seven minutes, compared to three minutes in the sprint race, with athletes handing over to each other between laps.
Competitors must run uphill on skis with “skins” for grip, climb a set of stairs in boots with skis strapped to their backs and ski downhill through a short slalom course, with transitions in between playing a crucial role in times.
Spain, who were the only medal-winning team that did not consistently hold their place, received a three-second penalty, possibly for not stowing their ski “skins” away properly, but that did not affect their final placing.
The U.S. team of Anna Gibson and Cam Smith, finished a creditable fourth, with Italian married couple Alba de Silvestro and Michele Boscacci, who got the loudest cheers, coming fifth.
(Reporting by Marleen Kaesebier in Bormio; Editing by Alison Williams and Andrew Cawthorne)
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