Lebanon’s Alexander Hayek shines in the Long Slalom category at the Youth Olympic Winter Games.
The Lebanese delegation’s participation in the fourth Youth Olympic Winter Games currently taking place in Gangwon, South Korea, is ongoing. On the second day, Wednesday, January 24, the Lebanese athletes participated in the Alpine skiing competition (Long Slalom). Alexander Hayek (born in 2007) represented Lebanon and delivered a good performance, as per Raymond Succar, the mission’s president, who accompanied him along with coaches Salim Keyrouz and the Frenchman Romain Garcin.
Hayek finished in 42nd place out of 79 participants in the race. Succar noted that in the first round, Hayek made a technical error which caused him to lag behind by seconds. He recorded a time of 1:00:16 minutes. However, he managed to recover in the second round, significantly improving his time to 53:83 seconds. The total time was 1:53:99 minutes, reflecting the impact of Hayek’s good and pre-existing preparations for the event. Succar also mentioned that the extremely cold weather impacted performance, as Lebanese players are not accustomed to such climatic conditions, not in Lebanon or even in Europe.
Concerning the technical aspect of the race, Succar explained that the competitors’ starting point was at an altitude of 1,142 meters, and the arrival point was at 870 meters.
In the daily communication between the mission’s management in Gangwon and Beirut, Succar informed Dr. Pierre Jalkh, the President of the Lebanese Olympic Committee, and Freddy Keyrouz, the President of the Lebanese Ski and Biathlon Federation, about Hayek’s participation and the results he achieved. They praised his performance and wished success to the remaining players.
It is worth mentioning that both players Kiana Sakkal and Alexander Hayek will conclude their participation in the event tomorrow, Thursday, January 25, by competing in the Alpine skiing race (Short Slalom).
