WHISTLER, British Columbia — In a desperate attempt to win a medal in Wednesday’s downhill, Sweden’s Anja Paerson shot high off the last jump and endured a spectacular crash that left her lower body peppered with bruises.
Shaken but determined, Paerson got back in the starting gate Thursday and claimed a bronze medal in super-combined, her sixth career Olympic medal, tying the record held by Croatia’s Janica Kostelic.
Paerson had the seventh- best time in the combined downhill and followed it with a stellar slalom run to join Germany’s Maria Riesch and Team USA’s Julia Mancuso on the podium.
“Amazing,” U.S. women’s coach Jim Tracy. “That was a fall that probably would have taken 98 percent of the field out. It goes back to the mental part of the sport. She really wanted to do something, and if she was physically able to do it, she was going to do it. That was a great, great effort.”
Paerson, 28, conceded it was frightening to get back in a downhill starting gate, and she was in considerable pain, but she didn’t want to miss a race.
“It hurts, but I am fighting and I am trying to keep a smile,” Paerson said. “I’m doing what I love to do.”
