Anna-Lena Forster at the Paralympics: Gold in jumping and landing

In a slight right-hand bend, about halfway through the downhill race in Cortina d’Ampezzo, it became clear why all this effort was necessary. The thousand hours of practice in the mountains, the year-round strength and coordination training, but also the tinkering with her high-tech monoski bob. The German monoskier Anna-Lena Forster, 30, was carried too far to the right when jumping on the Tofana slope. It looked like she had to say goodbye to her dream of Paralympic downhill gold. What then followed was a spectacular course correction at full speed.

The experts at the Institute for Research and Development of Sports Equipment (FES) recently sent out a proud announcement about Forster’s high-tech vehicle: “The precisely fitting carbon seat shell transmits Forster’s control impulses directly to the sports equipment. In collaboration with specialists (…), the FES was able to integrate a racing damper whose rebound and compression stages can be optimally adjusted depending on the discipline, slope and weather. (…) The result: maximum adhesion and optimized control.” All of these special features certainly couldn’t do any harm in this scene. Above all, Anna-Lena Forster demonstrated what an outstanding skier she is.

If a spring is installed between the body and the ski, jumps on the slopes are particularly risky. After landing, one big jump is followed by a second one before the system settles down again. So Forster came up, took off again, tilted the ski with a hip movement while still in the air – and intercepted the next landing with a controlled left swing. Then she drove past the next gate on the right side. And the rest of the slopes down to gold.

One of her competitors in the “sitting” category did not succeed: the Dutchwoman Barbara van Bergen, who started first, took off for a jump after the fourth corner, landed too diagonally, rolled over in her sports equipment and flew into the safety fence. “I know that if Barbara starts ahead of us, this can happen because she is unfortunately such a crash pilot,” Forster said later. Alpine national coach Justus Wolf then sent a short radio message upwards: Forster should continue to concentrate on himself despite the delay! “We also conveyed to her that she should enjoy it,” said Wolf.

Enjoying things hadn’t been so easy lately. Because German disabled sport had placed a large part of its medal expectations on Forster’s shoulders. She arrived as a four-time Paralympics champion; In five races, it was said, she would chase gold five times. You have to hide that first. Especially since a single botched jump can quickly change everything.

Actually, Anna-Lena Forster – who was born with only one, very shortened leg – is strongest in slalom. She was still missing downhill gold. “I knew it could happen today, but I also knew how strong the others were,” she said afterwards. At the last split, the Spaniard Audrey Pascual Seco was three hundredths of a second ahead. By then Forster had “already ticked off the gold, especially since I had a few rides where I thought: Oh God, you can’t really afford that.”

At the finish, however, we were five hundredths ahead. What is even more remarkable is that China’s Sitong Liu won bronze by 5.48 seconds. “It’s great when our races are so close,” said Forster. “And the medal is all the more valuable because I fought so hard for it.”