Super G, Men

The Super G was the second male Alpine skiing event to be decided in Beijing and was held on the same course, but the day after the downhill. The ongoing Super G World Cup saw only two different winners in the five races held, with Marco Odermatt winning the season opener in Beaver Creek 1 and the last race before the Olympics, in Wengen. In-between, Aleksander Aamodt Kilde won in Beaver Creek 2, Val Gardena, and Bormio. Both also topped the standings with Kilde first and Odermatt second, followed by the Austrians Matthias Mayer, Vincent Kriechmayr, and Raphael Haaser. Kriechmayr was also Super G Crystal Globe winner in 2021, after finishing second on three consecutive occasions in the previous years, and was also the reigning 2021 World Champion. Dominik Paris won the 2019 Super G World Cup and became World champion the same year, while Kjetil Jansrud won the World Cup trophy in 2018, and Mauro Caviezel in 2020.

Jansrud competed in the Super G, after not taking part in the downhill the day before, but was not at his best after the injury caused by a fall in early December 2021. Caviezel did not participate in Beijing because he was still recovering from concussion sustained in a bad crash in a training run at Garmisch-Partenkirchen in January 2021.

Kilde, wearing bib number 7, was the first of the favourites to go and he overtook Pinturault, who had been leading up to that point by a full second. Wearing bib number 9 was Odermatt, who was seen as Kilde’s toughest opponent, but he was not able to finish the race and so another Norwegian, Sejersted, settled into second place. Next to race was Kriechmayr, but he only finished in third, 2/100ths of a second behind Sejersted. Wearing bib number 13, Mayer again gave a great Olympic performance and took the lead 0.42 seconds ahead of Kilde. What looked a comfortable lead turned into a nail-biter when the next starter Ryan Cochran-Siegle finished second, only 4/100ths behind the leader. As none of the other competitors were able to come close to a podium finish, the medallists were decided and Mayer repeated his win from four years ago in this event.

Mayer become only the third male skier to win an Alpine skiing event back-to-back after Alberto Tomba (giant slalom 1988 and 1992) and Kjetil André Aamodt (also in Super G 2002 and 2006). Mayer become the fifth male Alpine skier to win three gold medals and also became to most successful Austrian Alpine skier ever. Mayer won the race with an average speed of 102.09 km/h and 1.13 metres ahead of Cochran-Siegle. Like in the downhill, manufacturer Head again won gold, and also silver, but bronze went to Atomic with Kilde. Cochran-Siegle who followed in the footsteps of his mother Barbara Cochran, the slalom gold medal winner back in 1972.