TT Alpine skier continues Winter Olympics run

TT's Abigail Vieira continued her quest in the 2020 Winter Youth Olympic Games as she participated in the Giant Slalom event, on Sunday, in Lausanne, Switzerland.

The Alpine Skiing Giant Slalom event is contested against the clock format with each skier having to complete two runs and the competitor with the fastest combined time wins. Vieira, who is TT's first Alpine skier to participate at any Olympic event, placed 45th out of 78 participants in the first run. Unfortunately, in the second run she hit a gate and crashed coming around one of the next turns and she didn’t finish the race. Luckily, she was unhurt and in the end was welcomed by applauding fans.

After the event, Vieira said, “I am really happy with how I’ve been doing, just because I’ve enjoyed pushing myself through the course. I feel like this is the hardest I have pushed myself, and it’s good to finish (the first run) feeling accomplished.” Speaking ahead of the Slalom race, on Tuesday, which will be her final event, the 17-year-old said, “I am excited for the slalom because I wanted to improve on the slalom I did yesterday, but I think going forward it’s just being more and more aggressive as time goes on.”

The general secretary of the TT Olympic Committee (TTOC) Annette Knott was full of praise of the young skier,“The experience for the TTOC Olympic Committee has been a wonderful one. The TT Snowsports Federation have really started to push for athletes representing us at the Winter Olympics and then we get this wonderful gem, Abby, that comes out of nowhere to represent us at the Winter Youth Olympics.

“It’s the first time, so it’s a historical event, it’s a real honour for me to be here to actually be seeing Abby compete, and the wonderful support from everyone here. The reality is that it’s only the beginning. I think this is going to be an inspiration for a lot of others, and motivation to perhaps now come in and get involved in the winter sports.”

Vieira was born outside of Boston, in the north east region of the US to Trinidadians Richard and Alison Vieira. In her previous races, she finished 32nd in the women’s alpine combined slalom, on Saturday, and 42nd among 62 competitors in the super giant slalom on Friday.