Didier Defago
Didier Defago | |||||||||||||||||||||
Didier Défago in April 2014 |
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nation | Switzerland | ||||||||||||||||||||
birthday | 2nd October 1977 (age 42) | ||||||||||||||||||||
place of birth | Morgins , Switzerland | ||||||||||||||||||||
size | 184 cm | ||||||||||||||||||||
Weight | 90 kg | ||||||||||||||||||||
Career | |||||||||||||||||||||
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discipline |
Downhill , Super-G , giant slalom , combination |
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society | SC Morgins | ||||||||||||||||||||
status | resigned | ||||||||||||||||||||
End of career | 19th March 2015 | ||||||||||||||||||||
Medal table | |||||||||||||||||||||
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Placements in the Alpine Ski World Cup | |||||||||||||||||||||
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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 .
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
- Salt Lake City 2002 : 6th Super-G, 12th downhill, 14th giant slalom
- Turin 2006 : 14th giant slalom, 16th Super-G, 26th downhill
- Vancouver 2010 : 1st downhill, 15th Super-G
- Sochi 2014 : 14th departure
World championships
- St. Anton 2001 : 11th Super-G
- St. Moritz 2003 : 7th combination
- Bormio 2005 : 6th downhill, 7th super-G
- Åre 2007 : 4th super combination, 10th descent
- Val-d'Isère 2009 : 8th Super-G, 20th giant slalom
- Schladming 2013 : 8th descent, 26th Super-G
- Vail / Beaver Creek 2015 : 7th Super-G, 11th Downhill
World Cup ratings
season | total | Departure | Super G | Giant slalom | slalom | combination | ||||||
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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 |
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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
- 1999/2000 season : 9th downhill classification
- 2 podium places
Junior World Championships
- Hoch-Ybrig 1996 : 1st Super-G, 2nd combination, 3rd giant slalom, 4th descent, 9th slalom
More Achievements
- 1 win in the Nor-Am Cup
- 3 Swiss championship titles (downhill 2003, giant slalom 2004 and 2012)
- 5 victories in FIS races
Web links
- Didier Défago's website (French)
- Didier Défago in the database of the International Ski Federation (English)
- Didier Défago in the database of Ski-DB (English)
- Didier Défago in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Défago fails at 0.17 millimeters. skiinfo.de, December 13, 2005, accessed on January 21, 2008 .
- ↑ The Coronation of the Other Didier. Tages-Anzeiger , February 16, 2010, accessed March 19, 2015 .
- ↑ 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 .
- ↑ Défago lucky bag: surprising victory in Kitzbühel. Neue Zürcher Zeitung , January 26, 2014, accessed on March 19, 2015 .
- ↑ Gisin and Défago stop. Spiegel Online , March 19, 2015, accessed March 24, 2015 .
personal data | |
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SURNAME | Defago, Didier |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Swiss ski racer |
DATE OF BIRTH | 2nd October 1977 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Morgins |