Didier Defago

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Didier Defago Alpine skiing
Didier Défago in April 2014
Didier Défago in April 2014
nation SwitzerlandSwitzerland Switzerland
birthday 2nd October 1977 (age 42)
place of birth Morgins , Switzerland
size 184 cm
Weight 90 kg
Career
discipline Downhill , Super-G ,
giant slalom , combination
society SC Morgins
status resigned
End of career 19th March 2015
Medal table
Olympic games 1 × gold 0 × silver 0 × bronze
Junior World Championship 1 × gold 1 × silver 1 × bronze
Olympic rings winter Olympics
gold Vancouver 2010 Departure
FIS Alpine Ski Junior World Championships
gold Hoch-Ybrig 1996 Super G
silver Hoch-Ybrig 1996 combination
bronze Hoch-Ybrig 1996 Giant slalom
Placements in the Alpine Ski World Cup
 Individual World Cup debut March 7, 1996
 Individual world cup victories 5
 Overall World Cup 6. ( 2004/05 , 2008/09 )
 Downhill World Cup 3rd (2008/09)
 Super G World Cup 3rd (2008/09)
 Giant Slalom World Cup 9th ( 2006/07 )
 Slalom World Cup 52nd ( 2005/06 )
 Combination World Cup 3rd (2004/05)
 Podium placements 1. 2. 3.
 Departure 3 2 0
 Super G 2 5 0
 Giant slalom 0 0 1
 combination 0 1 2
 

Didier Défago (born October 2, 1977 in Morgins ) is a former Swiss ski racer . He was primarily specialized in the fast downhill and super-G disciplines, but also drove giant slaloms and super combinations . The greatest success of his career was winning the downhill gold medal at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games . His younger brother Daniel was also a ski racer.

biography

Défago took part in a ski race for the first time at the age of six, and from 1992 he started in FIS races . He made his debut in the European Cup on January 8, 1996, when he finished 29th on the downhill from Les Arcs straight away in the points. A week later he achieved his first victory in an FIS race. At the end of February of the same year, he won three medals at the 1996 Junior World Championships in Hoch-Ybrig : gold in the super-G, silver in the combination and bronze in the giant slalom. As the reigning junior world champion, he contested his first World Cup race on March 7, 1996 at the World Cup final in Kvitfjell, Norway ; he classified himself in 15th place and immediately won his first World Cup points.

In the following winters, Défago could not build on these first successes, which is why he was mostly used in the European Cup. Rankings in the World Cup points remained sparse. He achieved his first top ten placement in a World Cup race on January 21, 2000 when he finished seventh in the Super-G in Kitzbühel . In the following winter of 2000/01 he also regularly achieved good results, but without reaching a podium. He achieved this for the first time on March 3, 2002 as runner-up in the Super-G in Kvitfjell. Défago celebrated its first World Cup victory on December 20, 2002, at the Super-G in Val Gardena .

Didier Défago in December 2006

On December 11, 2005, Défago was the fastest rider in the super combination of Val-d'Isère , but he was subsequently disqualified because the binding plate on one of his skis was 0.17 millimeters too high. Every now and then he achieved good results, but was rarely able to bring a run to the finish without a mistake. Podium placements were sparse from 2005 to 2008. The 2008/09 season saw a change for the better: On January 17, 2009, Défago won the Lauberhorn downhill run in Wengen , and a week later the downhill run on the Streif in Kitzbühel . He is therefore one of the few ski racers who were able to win the two most prestigious World Cup descents in the same winter.

At the Olympic Games and World Championships, Défago had been unsuccessful until then; the best result was a fourth place in the super combined at the 2007 World Championships in Åre . After the World Cup season 2009/10 was initially within the usual framework (two second places), he was not one of the favorites before the 2010 Winter Olympics , in contrast to Didier Cuche . On February 15, 2010, Défago achieved the greatest success of his career when he won the gold medal in the downhill with a lead of seven hundredths of a second over Aksel Lund Svindal .

On September 15, 2010, Défago tore an inner ligament and cruciate ligament in his left knee while training in Zermatt . Because of this, he missed the entire 2010-11 season. After a break of more than a year, he made his comeback when, on December 29, 2011, he became the first Swiss to win the descent on the Pista Stelvio in Bormio . In the further course of the World Cup season 2011/12 he did not get any podium finishes. After the 2012/13 season had started well with a fifth place in the giant slalom in Sölden , he did not get past a tenth place in the further course of the winter. The 2013/14 season was also initially characterized by moderate performance until he surprisingly won the Super-G in Kitzbühel on January 26, 2014, thus confirming his reputation as a “lucky bag”. His last season 2014/15 was similar: after an average season he finished second on March 18, 2015 in the downhill from Méribel (in the penultimate race of his career). One day later he contested his last of a total of 402 World Cup races in the same place (12th place in the Super-G). After the end of the season, Défago ended his active sports career, which he had been certain of for a long time.

successes

Olympic games

World championships

World Cup ratings

season total Departure Super G Giant slalom slalom combination
space Points space Points space Points space Points space Points space Points
1995/96 126. 16 - - 38. 16 - - - - - -
1997/98 138. 3 - - - - 54. 3 - - - -
1998/99 93. 31 - - 29 31 - - - - - -
1999/00 27. 294 39. 28 16. 102 15th 164 - - - -
2000/01 24. 315 17th 123 13. 90 23. 102 - - - -
2001/02 14th 429 34. 36 7th 202 13. 141 - - 7th 50
2002/03 11. 579 18th 159 7th 180 11. 171 53. 9 7th 60
2003/04 32. 281 21st 147 26th 46 31. 52 - - 13. 36
2004/05 6th 684 15th 185 4th 286 14th 153 - - 3. 60
2005/06 15th 543 9. 246 22nd 94 21st 92 52. 16 9. 95
2006/07 14th 515 21st 158 14th 100 9. 163 - - 15th 94
2007/08 9. 645 9. 225 4th 262 18th 107 - - 21st 51
2008/09 6th 738 3. 363 3. 242 20th 97 - - 20th 36
2009/10 12. 527 8th. 230 12. 147 28. 41 - - 8th. 109
2011/12 18th 538 13. 239 19th 114 17th 145 - - 23. 40
2012/13 30th 217 29 74 26th 33 19th 110 - - - -
2013/14 19th 378 16. 165 6th 195 36. 18th - - - -
2014/15 18th 406 13. 228 9. 178 - - - - - -

World Cup victories

  • 16 podium places, including 5 wins:
date place country discipline
December 20, 2002 Val Gardena Italy Super G
January 17, 2009 Wengen Switzerland Departure
January 24, 2009 Kitzbühel Austria Departure
December 29, 2011 Bormio Italy Departure
January 26, 2014 Kitzbühel Austria Super G

European Cup

Junior World Championships

  • Hoch-Ybrig 1996 : 1st Super-G, 2nd combination, 3rd giant slalom, 4th descent, 9th slalom

More Achievements

Web links

Commons : Didier Défago  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Défago fails at 0.17 millimeters. skiinfo.de, December 13, 2005, accessed on January 21, 2008 .
  2. The Coronation of the Other Didier. Tages-Anzeiger , February 16, 2010, accessed March 19, 2015 .
  3. ↑ Torn cruciate ligament: World Cup season for Olympic champion Didier Défago is over! (No longer available online.) Skionline.ch, September 15, 2010, archived from the original on April 2, 2015 ; Retrieved September 15, 2010 .
  4. Défago lucky bag: surprising victory in Kitzbühel. Neue Zürcher Zeitung , January 26, 2014, accessed on March 19, 2015 .
  5. Gisin and Défago stop. Spiegel Online , March 19, 2015, accessed March 24, 2015 .