“It’s already huge”: inside Emily Harrop’s clan in tears after Olympic silver in ski mountaineering

Tears flow. Disappointment, pride, tension suddenly released, and fatigue after hours spent standing screaming and eating snow. This corner of the Bormio stand stirs up a lot of emotions, caught in the whirlwind of the Olympics that they are discovering, like the athletes. They came to see Emily Harrop’s coronation, they got this silver medal, at the end of the first Olympic final in the history of ski mountaineering.

While the 28-year-old Frenchwoman started as favorite, she crossed the line two seconds and 38 hundredths behind the Swiss, Marianne Fatton. Her clan vibrated, screaming with joy as they saw her break away on the climb. Before becoming disillusioned after these two transitions around the stairs, where the young woman lost too much time taking off and then putting her skis back on.

“We dressed up like that so she would have a banana”

“Something happened, I don’t really know,” breathes Chris, her father, who spent his daughter’s race holding his wife’s shoulders firmly. We are disappointed, because she wanted it to be gold. But it’s still a silver medal. Olympic vice-champion, that’s not bad anyway! »

A few meters nearby, his manager Grégory Jacquet suppresses a few tears. His companion, Arthur, expressed his pride to the media who came to follow the race with him. The young man is surrounded by people dressed as bananas, the end of the day for the Harrop clan. “Emily told us: give me a smile. So we dressed up like that so that she would have a banana,” explain Tatiana and Nick, a couple who came from Windsor, in the United Kingdom, for the occasion.

Born in the Alps to British parents, Emily Harrop has brought around thirty people to Bormio, where they communicate here and there in French or English. The “Come on, Emily” precede the “Fuck, damn” when this former alpine ski specialist sees the title slip away.

“We are so proud of her”

“We know she’s going to be disappointed because she wanted gold, but from our point of view, it’s already huge to see her do that,” assure Marie and Marion, high school friends who came for the occasion. We are so proud of her. It’s great what she does and what she made us experience. She is so inspiring. »

On Saturday, the two friends will wear the banana costume again. “Of course we will be there,” they assure in unison, referring to the mixed team relay where Emily Harrop will be associated with Thibault Anselmet, bronze medalist for the men a few minutes after the women’s race. There will even be more of us. »

Below, their friend continues interviews, her medal hanging around her neck, switching from English to French. The snow has stopped falling, and volunteers are sweeping away the piles of flakes that have accumulated on the ground. It’s time to say goodbye to the stands. And goodbye to this dream of individual Olympic gold in Milan-Cortina.