I just read on Box Score News about Estelle Alphand winning the first Gold Medal at the Innsbruck 2012 Winter Youth Olympic Games. The first Gold Medal went to 16-year-old Estelle Alphand as the Alpine Skiing favourite took the Women’s Super G with a time of 1 minute, 5.78 seconds.

Box Score News quoted:

“It’s amazing to be the winner of the first Gold medal,” Alphand said. “But it’s just the beginning.”

Alphand is going for Gold in all four Skiing events hosted at the Patscherkofel venue.

If she can achieve her lofty goal, it could gain Alphand some attention from her idol, Lindsey Vonn (USA), who may visit the Games later this week.

“I’ve never met her, maybe in Val d’Isere but I’ve just seen her,” Alphand said, adding that she would welcome the idea of spending time with the American, who is an Olympic Gold medallist and World Cup Skiing phenomenon.

Alphand has another noteworthy role model, her father Luc Alphand, an Olympian and former World Cup Skiing star who once won the famed Hahnenkamm race in Kitzbuhel twice in one day, in 1995.

It is perhaps from him that Alphand gets her love of speed.

When not at school in Albertville, the Serre Chevalier native rides motorcycles, rides horses, and does almost anything that can give her the thrill of going fast.

“She is one of those people who loves speed,” French ski coordinator Jean Pierre Mollie said. “She is always participating in sports of different kinds when she’s not skiing or training.”

Alphand will continue her quest for medals in the Super Combined when action gets under way on Sunday at 10:15.

I remember when I first moved here 10 years ago, our friend’s son being in the same class as Estelle at St Chaffrey School and being quite ‘taken’ with her, I wonder if he will read this and comment?