Three of the five Team SA representatives at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina – the largest squad the country has sent to such Games – were in action on Saturday. All of Malica Malherbe (21), Thomas Weir (17) and Nicole Burger (31) soaked up the experience.
Malherbe was first up in the Last 16 of the women’s freestyle skiing dual moguls, where she came up against Jaelin Kauf of the United States. Things didn’t go the South African’s way and she recorded a DNF next to her name, and was placed 30th overall for the competition.
Next to take to the snow was the teenager Thomas Weir who placed 63rd overall, in an event where 12 athletes were unable to finish the programme.
Weir had a total time for the two runs of 2min 52.03sec, with his second run of 1:22.48 being seven seconds quicker than his first.
It was a tough course of 1428m which featured a 390m drop, from an altitude of 1619m to 1229m.
The other Team SA athlete was on the ice where Nicole Burger was to complete her final two runs in the Skeleton. She started heat three in 25th position, some 2:25 behind the halfway leader and her main ambition would be to make up a few places on the final leaderboard.
