Kim Meylemans’ Olympic dream has ended in a nightmare. The positive corona test on arrival in Beijing, the following ten days of quarantine and the tear in the hamstring have proved too much for the 25-year-old skeletoni. She finished her Olympic race in eighteenth place after failing in the final run.
The 25-year-old Meylemans was in the fourth run in the Yanqing National Sliding Center in 1:03.73, her slowest descent, only twentieth and also last and therefore dropped a lot of places in the standings. After the third run, she was still in eleventh place.
Our compatriot was fastest in the second run of the test event on the Olympic track in October. She aimed for an Olympic diploma (top eight) in China after she finished fourteenth at the Games in Pyeongchang four years ago.
The disappointment couldn’t be much greater. It just wouldn’t work,” Meylemans said with tears in her eyes. “I think I’ve tried every run to go for it. At the start I always tried to give everything, even though I had a lot of trouble with my hamstring. That last run completely slipped away from me, the puzzle pieces just didn’t fit together.’
‘It was a terrible two weeks. I just wanted to say it wasn’t too much. I tried to say that to myself, but the result is what it is.’
Photo: AP
The Olympic dream has turned into a nightmare. It’s now twice in a row that I can’t stand here smiling. This is going to take time to let it all sink in. I am especially looking forward to being a normal human being again. I have worked very hard for four years to be here. To see it go wrong in this way is just very painful. We’ll see what the next steps are. China is not exactly on my holiday list right now. I want to go home as soon as possible.’
A crying Meylemans found comfort at the bottom of the Olympic skeleton track in the arms of her Brazilian friend Nicole Silveira, who finished thirteenth. “I’ve definitely had a lot of support from her here over the past few weeks. It would have been much harder without her. She did a very strong competition for her first Olympics.’
Did the mandatory ten days of isolation ultimately cost Meylemans too many forces? “That’s very hard to say. It has also given me a lot of motivation. Maybe it was a little too forced. It certainly didn’t help. I’ve played six World Cups with the girls who are at the start here. I was in the top six five times. Then it is very unfortunate that things go completely wrong here at the Games. My start is one of my greatest strengths. I couldn’t play it now because of that hamstring injury. I pushed through, I really gave everything but it just wouldn’t work’, Meylemans had a hard time again.
“I know there’s nothing to blame under these circumstances, but that doesn’t make it any easier to deal with. Because I know what I’m worth. That is certainly not eighteenth place in the Olympics. Whether I was eleventh or eighteenth had made no difference. Here everything has to fit together perfectly. And with me it was even less than with others.’
