Claudia Riegler overcame difficult snow conditions and poor form this season to finish eleventh in the women's slalom at the Winter Olympic Games today.
Riegler, 25, and skiing at her third Olympics, was unusually cautious on the slopes at Deer Valley Resort as she sought to ensure she finished both runs.
The
slalom course proved particularly difficult, and knocked out one-third of the 70 competitors.
The gold medal was won by Croatia's Janica Kostelic, who had already secured a gold and silver medal in alpine events at these Games.
Riegler was "very excited" by her first run, which pushed her up from her start order of 32 to 17th after the first run, team chef de mission Geoff Balme said.
That ensured Riegler was at least able to ski in reasonable conditions on the second run.
Heavy snow and poor visibility plagued the event, but Riegler was able to stay on her feet to complete the two runs.
Her times of 55.17 seconds for the first run and 56.02 seconds for the second run gave her a combined time of one minute 51.19 secs, 5.09 secs behind Kostelic.
It was Riegler's third Olympic appearance. In 1994, as a 17-year-old and again four years ago in Japan, she failed to finish.
That had also been the story of Riegler's World Cup season to date.
She finished just two World Cup races this season, which saw the former world number two's ranking slip to 36, her lowest ranking in several years.
Riegler had said this week it had been difficult at times to continue this season with her form so poor.
However hopes of a good performance at Salt Lake City had provided the motivation to stick with it.
"I feel really confident," she told NZPA this week.
"I haven't had the best season so I have nothing to lose. My preparation has gone well, especially in the last 10 days.
"It's always been a big goal for me to ski at Salt Lake City and I just want to have the best two runs of my life."
- NZPA
