Jo de Beijing 2022: At 41, Veteran Johan Clarey Silver Medal of Descent

The native of Tignes ends only one-tenth of Switzerland Beat Feat. It becomes the oldest skiped medalist in the history of the Olympic Games.

A podium of experience for an unprecedented track. Monday, February 7, the descent, the Queen Test of the Olympic Games, has dedicated the old briscards of global alpine skiing. Judge rather: Switzerland Beat Feuz, soon 35 years, Olympic Champion; French Johan Clarey, 41, silver medal; And the “young” Austrian Matthias Mayer, 31, bronze.

The native of Tignes (Savoie), the leader of the group speed group of France, becomes at the same time the oldest Alpine Olympic medalist skier in the history of games, erasing tablets the American Bode Miller ( 36 years and 127 days), bronze at Super G of Sochi in 2014.

Johan Clarey does not stop being surprised. On January 21, he ranked – already – second on the Streif, the mythical Kitzbühel (Austria) descent trail on which dreams of winning any descender. Already behind Beat Feuz. Monday, French had trouble realizing: “It was the apotheosis of my career, it was my goal and it took place as in a dream,” Jubilant, smile Béat under the helmet, the quadmenaire in the ‘Arrival area, warmly congratulated by the members of the France team.

Party bib 19, the one that his partners respectfully “Papy” did equal game with Beat go through “The Rock”, the Yanqing Olympic Trail that skiers discovered when arriving in China, before coming To die at 10 small hundredths of the Time of Switzerland, the best descendant of the planet for five years.

“This morning I get up I’m tired, the day of yesterday tired me still [the start of the scheduled race Sunday was postponed by twenty-four hours because of strong gusts of wind] . And five minutes from the start, I felt good, I thought, “Dude, it’s your last games, put everything you’ve attack the track”, and I see 2 down, C is fantastic. “

” I may have believed a little more than the others “

Clarey, for the sake of saving a body bruised by injuries until thirties, had bet on two races: Kitzbühel and the Olympic descent. WINNING PARI. Some of them would have laughed at the nose in mid-January when after Wengen (Switzerland), the France Speed team counted on absent subscribers on World Cup podiums. Today, the dean of the White Cirque said, there is “perhaps believed a little more than others”.

“All the work he has provided until now is rewarded. At 41 years, it is deserved, for him and for the whole group, it’s a lot of emotion, greeted Xavier Fournier-Bidoz, The French speed coach of the Speed Group. For four or five years, it has fun. With Beat and Matthias, it’s a beautiful podium, really. “

Same admiration in Matthieu Bailet’s look, 27 ^e from the race after a big mid-term fault – “It’s the athlete that I respect the most in our group” – Or Maxence Muzaton (11 ^e, his best winter ranking) – “A well of knowing, he has a lot to bring us”. But it’s Blaise Giegendanner (26 ^e), who accompanied his elder on the Kitzbühel podium on January 21, which makes the most beautiful tribute:

“” Yo “, it’s a golden guy, I’ve remember him in 2016, he told me he wanted to stop skiing; today he is Olympic vice-champion … He has often told us that the younger generation grew to the buttocks old, finally, it’s the old people who pull us up. All we must do, we young, it’s skiing in their wake and trying to catch up. “

After twenty winters in competition – nine podiums, no victory in the World Cup – Johan Clarey does not know yet if he will retrieve next season, with the World Courchevel for Horizon. Too early to decide, even if at 41 years old efforts begin to weigh.

Monday, in the arrival area of ”The Rock”, white ribbon serpentant through a peel massive of Hebei beaten by the winds, Johan Clarey pushed a great cry of joy. Then had immediate thought. She was for her friend of the France David Fish, dead team at the end of 2017 training in Canada. The Savoyard considered him his brother. After his silver medal in Super G to the Worlds of Are, in Sweden, in 2019, he had this sentence: “I feel like not to ski alone, it’s mystical.”

/Media reports.