Russia
Snowboard
Overall Ranks
#7 among Russian Olympians
#1 among Snowboarders
Olympic Results
2014
Parallel Giant Slalom - Gold
Parallel Slalom - Gold
2022
Parallel Giant Slalom - Bronze
Total
Events - 4
Gold - 2
Bronze - 1
Victor Ivan Wild was born in White Salmon, Washington on August 23, 1986, and originally competed for the United States in international competitions, but after the US Olympic Committee decided to stop funding snowboard racing in 2010, and after his marriage to Russian snowboarder Alyona Zavarzina in 2011, he moved to Russia and applied for citizenship.
He made his Olympic debut in 2014, competing in the Parallel Slalom and Parallel Giant Slalom. He posted the second-best qualifying time in the Parallel Giant, which moved him to the round of 16. Starting in that round, matches consisted of 2 snowboarders racing at the same time, with the best overall time after 2 races determining the winner. Wild won all but one race in the competition, taking the gold medal just hours after his wife won the bronze medal in the same event.
He earned the best qualifying time in the Parallel Slalom a few days later, getting him the top seed in the 16-man field, and again he won the competition while losing only a single race, a loss which came by 0.04 of a second to a 2-time world champion in the event. His win made him the first snowboarder ever to win multiple gold medals at the same Olympics, and he is still the only one to do it in 2 individual events.
The Parallel Slalom did not return after the 2014 Olympics, but Wild came back to defend his title in the Parallel Giant in 2018, but after placing 9th in qualifying, he lost in his first race and was eliminated.
Despite getting divorced in 2021, he decided to continue living in and competing for Russia, and he again competed in the Parallel Giant Slalom in 2022, again taking 9th place in the qualifying round. After upsetting fellow Russian Dmitry Loginov in the first round, he took down the #1 seed in the next, advancing to the semifinals. He lost his next race, then finished off the tournament with one final upset to earn himself a bronze medal.
Though Wild has only competed in 4 Olympic events in his career, and failed to medal in one of them, he dominated in both of his events in 2014, and another strong performance in 2022 earned him the title of best Olympic snowboarder of all time so far.
No comments:
Post a Comment