NBC found itself in a bit of a snafu on Friday evening, during coverage of the women’s alpine skiing event, the super giant slalom competition. Commentators Bode Miller and Dan Hicks got ahead of themselves and announced that Austria’s Anna Veith—one of the world’s leading Super-G competitors—had won the event, even though there were a few contenders still waiting to compete. “Four straight Olympic golds in the women’s Super-G for the skiing powerhouse of Austria. I just about can’t believe it!” Hicks exclaimed. NBC quickly switched to men’s figure skating finals, though programming was later changed back to Super-G when everyone found out that Czech Republic’s Ester Ledecka had won instead of Veith.
While Ledecka is a world champion in snowboarding, she was seen as a dark horse in the Super-G, especially since she only started competing in alpine skiing races two years ago, as a way to test herself. Using gold medalist Mikaela Shiffrin’s skies, Ledecka bested Veith by one hundredth of a second, and was completely shocked.
During her news conference, post-victory, she commented, “I really don’t know what happened. You tell me … I was riding. I really don’t know what happened. It was great.” She also wouldn’t take her skiing goggles off after her win, saying, “I was not as prepared as the other girls. I don’t have makeup on.”
