Nicole Silveira from Rio Grande do Sul achieved the best Olympic result in Brazilian history in ice events. This Saturday (14), the Brazilian concluded the skeleton competition at the Winter Games in the Italian cities of Milan and Cortina in 11th place. These are two positions ahead of what the athlete herself obtained in 2022, in the Beijing edition, in China.
In skeleton, athletes face an ice track aboard an individual sled, face down and with their heads forward, after starting standing up. The speed can exceed 140 kilometers per hour (km/h). In total, there are four descents, two on one day and two on another. The competitor with the lowest amount of time wins.
In total, Nicole set a time of 3min51s82, being 42 hundredths away from a top-10 finish. On Friday (13), the first descent was made in 57.93 and the second in 57.85. This Saturday, the gaúcha initially completed the course on the ice in 58s11. On the fourth and final descent, she repeated the mark from the first (57s93).
The gold medal went to Austrian Janine Flock, with a time of 3min49s02. She was 30 hundredths ahead of German Susanne Kreher, world champion in 2023, who took silver. Another competitor from Germany, Jacqueline Pfeifer, took bronze. Belgian Kim Meylemans, Nicole’s wife, was sixth.
Considering women’s results on ice and snow, Nicole’s achievement is second only to Isabel Clark’s ninth place at the Games in Turin, Italy, in snowboard cross, in 2006. This was also the country’s best performance at a Winter Olympics until Lucas Pinheiro Braathen, a Norwegian by birth, who decided to represent his mother’s Brazil, be gold in the slalom race giant this Saturday.
Nicole, 30 years old, was born in Rio Grande (RS), but moved at the age of seven to Calgary, Canada, where she discovered skeleton. In addition to being a high-performance athlete, the woman from Rio Grande do Sul, who trained in bodybuilding, works as a nurse. In 2020, amid the covid-19 pandemic, she spoke to Brazil Agency about everyday life in hospitals where he worked at the time, one of them as a child.
