Silver medalist on the Big Air, the Frenchwoman did not manage to climb on a second podium during the slopestyle won by the Swiss Mathilde Gremaud.
«Burnt out“, as she was going to confide after her competition, Tess Ledeux failed in her quest for a second podium at the Beijing Games. By finishing 7th in the slopestyle final, the Frenchwoman unfortunately confirmed her difficulties the day before during qualifying on a track that did not suit her. Everyone was waiting for act 2 of her duel with the Chinese Eileen Gu, who had snatched the gold medal from her hands at the last moment during the Big Air final. A duel that finally came to an end in Zhangjiakou…
The revenge between the two young women began from the first run, which the Frenchwoman dominated by a short head with a score of 72.91 against 69.90 for her rival. Not without a hint of incomprehension expressed by La Plagnarde when she discovered her result, that she had to hope for a better evaluated hair, probably up to 75 points. But a somewhat hesitant reception on his third figure cost him some precious units. Nevertheless, Tess Ledeux was ahead of Eileen Gu, but… behind the Estonian Kelly Sildaru (82.06), another declared candidate for the title in slopestyle, after her failure in qualifying in Big Air. In other words, if Ledeux wanted to take his revenge on the Chinese, Sildaru, she wanted to take hers vis-à-vis herself.
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However, this trio was not yet at the end of its troubles because after a catastrophic first run, the Swiss Mathilde Gremaud released a second of great beauty to take control of a very open contest with an excellent 86.56. A note that set the bar very high for going for gold. So much so that in the wake, or almost, Tess Ledeux made a mistake and fell back in the hierarchy behind the American Maggie Voisin and the Russian Anastasia Tatalina. But not Eileen Gu, who pushed the mimicry with Ledeux to the point of falling too. The expected duel turned to Berezina. There remained then a French run to reverse the trend…
Eileen Gu does (almost) the Big Air stunt again
Alas, this one was quickly short. From the first two figures, it was clear that she had failed to find the small spark to reverse an unfavorable trend. So much so that she dodged the last two jumps. The podium had definitely taken off. For her, but not for an Eileen Gu on the way to becoming the specialist in the latest passages of madness. In front of an encouraging audience with typical Chinese fervor, that is to say moderately enthusiastic, the Big Air Olympic champion came very close to the feat, winning an 86.23 synonymous with the silver medal behind Mathilde Gremaud, but ahead of the world number 1 in the discipline, Kelly Sildaru. Her dream of a triplet was gone. But to see her happiness and her radiant smile, not sure that she considers this second place as a failure.
