Unusual. Monaco’s bobsleigh team makes history during the Olympics
Through Cyril Bottollier-Lemallaz
Published on
Like a little air of Jamaica, but in a Monegasque version. A Monaco team came 6th in the two-man bobsleigh event on Tuesday, February 15, 2022, for the Winter Olympics currently taking place in Beijing. Either the best result in all Olympic history for Monegasque sport.
The popular bobsleigh in Monaco
The team made up of Rudy Rinaldi and Boris Vain has therefore achieved an unprecedented feat hitherto in the Principality. “It means a lot,” explained Rudy Rinaldi after the race. “We have suffered a lot over the past four years. I think we knew that one day we could fight for this. So, of course, we are content. Summary for Monaco”.
The news will not fail to make people react within the Principality, starting with Prince Albert II himself, a big fan of this sport and five times Olympian in this discipline, in which he participated at the Calgary Games, in 1988. But he never did better than 25th place.
He had also visited the team in Beijing before his feat.
19th in Pyeongchang in 2018
Bobsleigh has only been the professional activity of the two athletes for a decade. They placed 19th in the two-man event at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.
Before this Thursday, the team of Patrice Servelle and Jérémy Bottin was the one who had obtained the best ranking in the discipline, 12th at the Turin Games in 2006.
“We are a small country explains”, Rudy Rinaldi. “I think we still need time to build something big, to learn from our mistakes.”
A bronze precedent
However, Monaco had already distinguished itself in the history of the Olympic Games. It was in 1924, in Paris. Julien Médecin had won the bronze medal in the event… of architecture. A discipline which, today, is no longer Olympic.
Beyond this medal, which does not appear in the official tally, the best ranking obtained by Monegasque athletes is ninth place in taekwondo at the Sydney Games in 2000, as well as in judo in London in 2012 and Tokyo in 2021. .
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