It was another day of tough conditions and unfortunate circumstances as Poland’s alpine and cross-country skiers took to the snow for one last time

In the alpine skiing mixed team parallel, Poland lost out in the head to head to eventual bronze medallists Norway. This event is a mixed team competition which sees four skiers taking turns to race head to head down a slalom course alongside their opponents. Whichever team wins the race scores a point for their country. In each round there are four races, and if the scores are tied by the end, the team with the fastest male and female time combined will qualify.

Maryna Gąsienica-Daniel, Michał Jasiczek, Magdalena Łuczak and Paweł Pyjas led the charge for Poland in what was a close fought battle against the Norwegians. Gąsienica-Daniel and Pyjas won their respective contests, but Pyjas and Łuczak fell short, with the former crossing the line 0.3 seconds after his rival, and the latter disqualified for not completing her run.

A combined time of 49.65 seconds from Gąsienica-Daniel and Jasiczek was 1.01 seconds shy of their Norwegian counterparts’ time. Whilst this will have felt a cruel way for the team to exit the competition, particularly as three of the Polish skiers completed the course to the Norwegians two, the result fairly reflects the state of Polish alpine skiing with work to be done to make an impact for Milano-Cortina 2026.  

In the final cross-country event of the Games, Izabela Marcisz and Magdalena Kobielusz took to the Zhangjiakou National Cross-Country Skiing Centre for the women’s 30km free mass start. The poor conditions have dominated the conversation for the outdoor events for the final days of Beijing 2022, and today was no exception as the start time was delayed due to high winds.

However those winds continued to play an important part in the race, as many of the competitors struggled with the added affects of windchill in already cold conditions. Marcisz – one of Poland’s most promising cross-country skiers – succumbed to the brutality of the conditions in the second half of the race, finishing 21^st, whilst Kobielusz crossed the line in 57^th place.

Poland have struggled to ride out their luck in these Games, and this was perfectly summed up in today’s cross-country event as the high winds blew objects onto the course, including a banner reading ‘Beijing 2022’ which broke on of Marcisz’s ski poles.

The countless other bad luck stories, fraught emotions and only one medal won will leave many people in Poland scratching their heads as to why the reality of the Games deviated from the hopes of so many across the country. T5HN.com will be on hand to dissect Poland’s performance from the Games, over the coming days. For now, the party is over, and the flame at Beijing 2022 is out.