Olympic Games
At the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, she was the flag bearer for the Netherlands and she was among the outsiders for a medal. Due to using the wrong wax on her board she did not qualify among the first sixteen that entered the knock-out rounds.
At the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino she managed to qualify among the last sixteen and was determined to prove herself on the Olympic stage. In the first knock-out round she faced German Amelie Kober. Kober fell during the first run, giving Sauerbreij the maximum advantage for the second run, 1.5 seconds. In the second run Sauerbreij decided to go down safely and not fall herself. However Kober managed to come back on Sauerbreij and beat her with 0.03 of a second in the final metres. Kober went on to reach the final and take the silver medal.
At the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Nicolien Sauerbreij won the gold medal on the women's parallel giant slalom . This was the first Dutch medal at a non-ice skating event in the Winter Olympics, and the 100th Dutch gold medal at the Olympic Games.
Read more about this topic: Nicolien Sauerbreij
Famous quotes containing the words olympic and/or games:
“Like Olympic medals and tennis trophies, all they signified was that the owner had done something of no benefit to anyone more capably than everyone else.”
—Joseph Heller (b. 1923)
“In 1600 the specialization of games and pastimes did not extend beyond infancy; after the age of three or four it decreased and disappeared. From then on the child played the same games as the adult, either with other children or with adults. . . . Conversely, adults used to play games which today only children play.”
—Philippe Ariés (20th century)