“I vomited five times” – Sweden topped the Beijing medal table after terrain triumph
Jonna Sundling kept Sweden at the top of the Winter Olympics medal table when she landed the country’s fourth gold and led 1-2 in cross-country skiing.
Sundling took the ladies’ sprint in honor of compatriot Maja Dahlqvist, where Sweden now has six medals in total in Beijing 2022.
The champion called the course “the toughest I have competed on”, and enjoyed having Dahlqvist and another Swedish athlete, Emma Ribom, as company. Ribom finished sixth.
“It feels good to have them by my side at the starting line, it feels like we are in a training session but this is the Olympics,” said Sundling. “It was fun to be three Swedes in the final, it’s fantastic.”
Dahlqvist found the incident so stressful that she vomited after crossing the finish line in second place.
She said: “I thought it was the last thing I ever do and that if there was a race I would push as hard as I could, it was today.
“I vomited five times after. I was super happy and super light too. Now I feel better. I’m just so happy. It was so cool that we could make it a double.”
Oskar Eriksson and Almida De Val delivered a bronze for Sweden in the curling mixed doubles and beat Great Britain in third place before Italy defeated Norway in the final.
The Netherlands jumped a place to second on the table after Kjeld Nuis hit gold and Thomas Krol took silver on the men’s 1,500 meter skate.
Nuis said he drew inspiration from Ireen Wust on Monday who won the equivalent race for women and landed a gold medal for the fifth Winter Olympics in a row.
“She is a really special person,” said Nuis, “she is the best skater in the world. She has won world championships and Olympic medals since she was young.
“She does not win all races anymore. When I saw her win yesterday, it inspired me so much. When you see her win, you think ‘I want to do the same’.
The Russian Olympic Committee slipped from second to seventh on the table, with China pushing up to third place thanks to Eileen Gus’ fantastic triumph in freeski big air.
Gu landed a left double cork in 1620, a high-duty skill, to earn China’s third gold in his home games.
Born in the United States to an American father and Chinese mother, Gu has been widely criticized on social media for deciding to compete for China.
But she left a fiery repost to her critics, saying: “I know I have a good heart and I know that my reasons for making the decisions I make are based on a greater common interest and something I feel is greater.
“If other people do not really think that’s where I come from, it just reflects that they do not have the empathy to feel empathy with a good heart, perhaps because they do not share the same kind of morality as I do.
In that sense, I do not intend to waste my time trying to reassure people who are, one, uneducated and two, will probably never experience the kind of joy and gratitude and love that I have the great fortune to experience on a daily basis.
“If people do not like me, it is their loss. They will never win the Olympics.”
Germany, who received a gold from Natalie Geisenberger in the women’s singles, sits together with China in a third, both have two silvers to complete their three gold medals.
Ester Ledecka’s latest glorious gold, in parallel with the giant slalom, gave the Czech Republic a first medal of the games, which means that they are in a draw with New Zealand for 15th place.
Medal table (after day five):
1. Sweden (G4 S1 B1, total: 6)
2. The Netherlands (G3 S3 B1, total: 7)
China (G3 S2 B0, total: 5)
Germany (G3 S2 B0, total: 5)
5. Norway (G3 S1 B4, total: 8)
6. Italy (G2 S4 B1, total: 7)
7. Russian Olympic Committee (G2 S3 B5, total: 10)
8. Austria (G2 S3 B2, total: 7)
9. Slovenia (G2 S1 B2, total: 5)
10. France (G1 S4 B0, total: 5)