Slovenia’s girls’ ski jumping team produced the standout performance on day four of the Winter European Youth Olympic Festival (EYOF) 2023.
The quartet of Tinkara Komar, Katarina Pirnovar, Taja Bodlaj and Nika Prevc took home the gold medal in Friuli Venezia Giulia with a score of 859.5 from their jumps, which was 203 more than Italy in second place. The team from Germany won the bronze medal.
Austria were victorious in the boys’ final thanks to a superb score of 976.5 from their four skiers – Stephan Embacher, Joannes Poelz, Jakob Steinberger and Simon Steinberger. They saw off stiff competition from Poland and Germany, who finished in the silver and bronze medal positions.
Young Spaniard Laia Selles Sanchez continued her memorable week as she made it two gold medals in two days in the mountains. Selles Sanchez and teammate Miguel Fenoll Fernandez took the lead early in the ski mountaineering sprint mixed relay final and never gave it up. They came home nearly 25 seconds ahead of the Swiss team, who were slightly ahead of hosts Italy in the bronze position.
Nico Offenwanger won the boys’ gold medal in the freestyle ski cross, but Switzerland’s Chiara Von Moos pipped his fellow German Mattli Ferch to gold in the girls’ final to deny Germany a double in that discipline. Sweden’s William Young Shing and Paulo Piccolo won silver and bronze respectively in the boys’ race, while Sweden Alexandra Nilsson was the girls’ bronze medallist.
In cross country skiing, Margot Tirloy produced a majestic run to finish a full 30 seconds ahead of Finland’s Silva Kemppi – who picked up her second silver of the festival – as she won gold in the girls’ 5km individual free race, with Estelle Derbellay coming third. There was also gold medal success for Austria on day four as alpine skier Leonie Raich came home first in the girls’ slalom final.
The final group games in the ice hockey tournaments saw the gold medal final line-ups in both the boys’ and girls’ tournaments confirmed.
In the boys’ ice hockey tournament, all five goals came in the final seven minutes as Latvia beat Germany 3-2 to book their spot in Saturday’s gold medal game. They will face Switzerland, who turned on the style in the second semi-final as they beat Finland 8-3 thanks to goals from eight different scorers.
Slovakia will face Czechia in the girls’ final after the Czech’s comfortably saw off Sweden 7-2 in the final Group B game on Wednesday evening.
Switzerland remain unbeaten in the curling and sit top of Group A after victories over Spain and Hungary made it five wins in five matches, while Latvia are also undefeated in Group B with four wins from four after seeing off Slovenia and Turkey ahead of the final day og round robin games on Thursday.
