Giant Slalom, Men

Although he had struggled somewhat after the Calgary Olympics, defending champion Alberto Tomba had won the 1991 giant slalom World Cup. There were three other major contenders – the super-G gold medalist Kjetil André Aamodt (NOR), the 1991-92 World Cup leader Paul Accola (SUI), and the peripatetic Marc Girardelli (LUX). Girardelli had been a four-time overall World Cup champion, and coming into Albertville was considered the greatest skier without an Olympic medal, although he had ended that in the super-G with a silver. Girardelli was born in Austria and lived mostly in Switzerland. He had acquired Luxembourgeois citizenship after he and his father had disputes with the Austrian ski team. He had been unable to compete at the 1984 Winter Olympics because he did not obtain his citizenship in time, and although he competed at Calgary in 1988, he struggled there.

There were 131 skiers in the event, the largest entry ever in Winter Olympic skiing, and the first run seemingly took forever to complete. To make it more time-consuming, the course was not that difficult and a full 109 skiiers finished and competed in the second run. The first run went according to form, with Tomba leading, following by Girardelli, Aamodt, and Accola. Tomba again posted the fastest time in the second run, to defend his gold medal, with the order unchanged – Girardelli getting his second silver in Albertville, Aamodt winning bronze, and Accola in fourth place. Tomba’s performance made him the first Alpine skier to defend a title at the Winter Olympics.

Near the end of the race, Raymond Keyrouz was the 129th starter. But he was so slow that he was passed by the 130th starter El-Hassan Mahta. Both were eventually disqualified for missing gates.