Wild joy at husband-and-wife snowboard medal double

Russian snowboarder Vic Wild was euphoric after winning Olympic gold in the men’s parallel giant slalom on Wednesday — just minutes after his wife Alena Zavarzina took bronze in the women’s event.

“For both of us to have success on the same day is just incredible. I don’t know how this happened, it’s too good to be true.”

Zavzarina paid tribute to her husband for the sacrifices he had made.

“Vic was right about having success when one gets success and the other does not, it’s not really great,” she said. “I’m just very happy that we both did and I’m very happy Vic got gold because this is what he worked for.

“He’s so far from his home town. He did an amazing job, he had to switch countries, switch nationality and accept something that some people would not ever accept.

“He has to deal with the Russian mentality and stuff he’s not used to and be very flexible with people who don’t understand what he’s saying most of the time.

“He deserves it, I’m really happy and I’m going to cry now.”

Wild, who was born in the small town of White Salmon in Washington state, said if it wasn’t for his switch to Russia, he would never have won Olympic gold.

– Russia ‘has given me the opportunity’ -

“Russia’s the country that’s given me the opportunity to win a medal. If I was still riding for the USA I’d still be back home maybe with some mediocre job doing something mediocre.

“That’s not what I wanted to be. I wanted to try to be the best I thought I could be. I’m so stoked to win it for Russia. I live in Russia.”

Wild, whose gold was Russia’s first in snowboarding, beat Switzerland’s Nevin Galmarini in the final. Slovenia’s Zan Kosir claimed bronze.

In the women’s event, Patrizia Kummer won Switzerland’s 50th Winter Olympic gold medal by beating Tomoka Takeuchi of Japan in the final.

Takeuchi’s medal was the first by an Asian woman in snowboarding and followed the men’s halfpipe medals won by Ayumu Hirano (silver) and Taku Hiraoka (bronze), who broke the Asian duck in snowboarding last week.

Kummer was 0.30sec down after her first run on the slightly slower blue course but she said she always felt confident of recovering that deficit on her favoured red run.

“I still can’t believe it, it’s crazy. I still have the feeling that I have to go up and do another run,” she said.

“It was very difficult and bumpy. It wasn’t easy. The red course was better for me so it was good that I could run my first run on the blue course and then go onto the red one.”

Takeuchi said her historic medal was just the beginning.

“Asia is becoming really strong in snowboarding, not just Japan but all of Asia is becoming stronger and stronger every season,” she said.

Wild joy at husband-and-wife snowboard medal double Related image(s)