T&T skier Abigail Viera was all smiles after completing her first event at the Winter Youth Olympic Games at the Les Diablerets Alpine Centre in Lausanne, Switzerland on Friday.
Viera, the first alpine skier to represent T&T, competed in the Women's Super G event and completed the steep and challenging Willy Favre course with a time of one minute and 02.58 seconds to place 42nd of the 62 participants.
"It was good, the snow was really great, the surface was really good too. The course set was good, made it easy to follow so it was good, it was fun," said Viera in an interview on the T&T Olympic Committee Facebook page after her historic Olympic debut.
Analysing her run, she said, "The second-to-last under gate I was kind of overthinking my line and I could have done that better and then going off the jump I thought I could have just run a little more but I think that was the only problem,"
Winning the gold medal, the first at the Youth Olympics was Amelie Klopfenstein of Switzerland, who superbly sped down the fast course, to win with 56.27. Copping silver was France's Caitlin McFarlene with 56.35 and Noa Szollos of Israel bagged the bronze with 56.36.
Viera, whose hero is Tennis star Serena Williams, returns to the Alpine Centre on Saturday to compete in the Alpine Combined which is scheduled to start at 7.30 am (T&T time).
"It feels great, it's just getting the first jitters out on the first run but I'm so excited for the next to come because I feel like I'm ready," said a smiling Viera.
The resident of Boston, USA is expected to race in two other events at the Youth Games, the Giant Slalom which takes place on Sunday and the Slalom carded for Tuesday.
