Visiting Olympic champion Dominique Gysin: “This is how I feel ten years after the gold medal and my tears with my grandmother”

Ten years ago, Dominique Gysin drove to an Olympic gold medal in Sochi and called her grandmother into our hearts. For Blue Sport, she remembers that day that shaped her life.

Dominique Gysin (38) appears in a good mood at the Thalmuseum, where an exhibition on 15 Olympians from Engelberg is currently on display. A record for a village with a population of 4,000. On the third floor there is a room dedicated to the Jessine sisters. Dominique's downhill skis, which she raced to win Olympic gold on Rosa Khutor in Sochi, are also on display there.

Gissine continues to receive many media inquiries, most of which she rejects. She's making a few exceptions on the 10th anniversary of her Olympic victory. It means a lot to her to be remembered on this day and to have a statue dedicated to her. She says that February 12, 2014 shaped her life, but it did not change her as a person. Then he follows it with “Hope” with a smile. Her memories are still very fresh ten years later, “1:41:57 minutes” pours out. It was their journey to gold.

This spring Wednesday morning in the Western Caucasus ten years ago was emblematic of the speed specialist's profession. Until then, she had been repeatedly slowed by health setbacks. As the 28-year-old had never been on the podium in downhill before, Dominique Gysin had to take on the team's indoor qualifiers. “This has never happened to me before. I have doubted and struggled. You remember that this cancellation costs energy.

“It wasn't love at first sight”

Only in the third training session did she secure last place in the strong Swiss team with the best training time. “From that moment on, I felt free and had a lot of confidence in myself going down.” I loved the Olympic slope. “She was demanding, but it wasn't love at first sight.”

She says that when she stood in the starting house at No. 8, she knew this would be her last chance for an Olympic award. “I was convinced that I could win a medal. I just didn't know what color it was.” At the end, after a “flawless flight,” she looked first at the ground to consider whether she had exhausted her full potential. Had she. And when she looked at the painting, she realized that she was in the lead, even though It has never been the fastest.

She left one competitor after another behind. Even Slovenian Tina Mies, number 21, equaled the time. Jessen: “When Tina’s time turned green, I thought: ‘So it’s silver.’ Only when I looked again did I see the water classification. For the first time in the history of the Olympic Games there were two downhill champions in Sochi.

A phone call straight to the heart

With her gold medal, Giessen sparked Swiss cheers in front of the television screen, and her phone call from the captain's box went straight to everyone's hearts. Jessen, a confident athlete interested in media work, forgot that she was being photographed non-stop in the Commander's Box and called her grandparents on the phone. Grandma answered the call. The rest is known and has been television history for a long time. “Grandma – it's like Dominique…” Tears!

“I felt the need to share my happiness with my grandparents,” she says ten years later, “because they always supported me, participated in many races, and I was often allowed to stay with them during countless rehabilitation days. And because my grandfather was in poor health.” ” Her grandfather died two months after the gold journey. Her grandmother is still alive and has been a great-grandmother for over a year.

“Today children are the main topic for us…”

Is gold from Sochi a kind of compensation for the many disappointments and difficult moments? Jessen thinks you can see it differently. “If you always stick to it, always give it everything you have, your heart and your soul, happiness will find you in the end.”

You should know: She had already undergone nine knee surgeries and about the same number of comebacks “until that crazy day in Sochi.” Four years ago, at the Vancouver Olympics, she experienced the “biggest disappointment” of her career. While on her way to getting a medal, she suffered a serious fall at the finish line and was eliminated.

Long gone are the times like the years when the three Gysin brothers from Engelberg formed a unique family squad at the World Cup. Only Michelle, the youngest, still drives today. Brother Mark, father of a thirteen-month-old boy, as race director at Stöckli, is partly responsible for Marco Odermatt's great successes. For the “ski-mad” Giesen family, sports are no longer the top topic these days. “These are our children,” says Jessen, smiling. “How could it be otherwise?”