Super G, Men1

The men’s Super G was started, but in heavy snow, and after 15 skiers, the run was cancelled and held later in the day. Bode Miller (USA) was the 2005 World Cup Champion and World Champion, but Austrian Hermann Maier was back, probably the greatest ever Super G skier, five-time World Cup champion in the event, including 2004, who had now fully recovered from a terrifying motorcycle accident in 2001 that had kept him out of the Salt Lake City Olympics. Miller went off 23rd, among the 30 seeds, but straddled a gate and did not finish – the Torino Olympics were not going well for him. Two skiers later, the venerable Kjetil André Aamodt came down in 1:30.65 to take the lead. Maier was off last of the seeds, and was close to Aamodt, posing 1:30.78, but the Norwegian had his fourth Olympic Alpine gold medal, and eighth medal overall, both Olympic records. Aamodt retired early in 2007, after an international ski career that first started in 1987.