Combined, Men

The second men’s Alpine skiing event was held as scheduled on Friday, 14 February, with the downhill part moved up one hour for better conditions. The downhill phase was held on the same course as the downhill event five days before but the course was shortened, starting at an altitude of 1,947 metres. The race started between “Accola Valley” and “Babya Yama”, the first race going off at 1000.

Only two Super Combined events were scheduled during the 2013/14 World Cup and both were held prior to the Games. In Wengen Ted Ligety won in front of Alexis Pinturault while nine days later in Kitzbühel Pinturault beat Ligety, which meant that these two also topped the Combined scoring for the winter. In former years Ivica Kostelić was the dominant racer placing first in the Combined World Cup 2010/11 as well as in 2011/12 and tied with Pinturault in 2012/13. Aksel Lund Svindal was World Champion in 2011, while Ligety won in 2013, with Kostelić winning the World Cup Super Combined held as pre-Olympic event in Sochi in February 2012.

Aleksander Kilde, skiing first, set the early downhill target time of 1:53.85. Three starters later the time was bettered by Ondřej Bank (CZE) and, soon afterwards, by Kjetil Jansrud (NOR), who was to set the fastest time of the downhill phase in 1:53.24. Defending champion Bode Miller had a relatively poor race by his standards, placing 12th.

Adam Žamba (SVK), 27th after the downhill but a slalom specialist, skied what would be the best slalom time of 50.11 to put him in the lead and, eventually take fifth place. People were left wondering whether Žamba could do the impossible and win, until Sandro Viletta (SUI) produced what would be the second fastest slalom and a combined time of 2:45.20 to lead Žamba by 1.14 seconds. Miller skied a slightly better slalom, but still finished 0.26 seconds behind Žamba and was to eventually finish sixth. Viletta’s first close challenger was to come from an unexpected source, Christof Innerhofer (ITA), a downhill specialist who was silver medallist in his specialist event. Innerhofer was to produce the joint third fastest slalom and finished 0.47 seconds behind Viletta, which appeared to leave the door open for Kostelić, but he was a little cautious on the slalom run and finished 0.34 seconds behind Viletta. For Kostelić this was his 4th Olympic silver medal, the gold having eluded him so far. The downhill leaders, Bank and Jansrud, were unable to keep their positions and finished seventh and fourth respectively.

Viletta was an unexpected winner as he had only one podium finish in the World Cup with a Super G win in Beaver Creek in December 2011 and his best World Cup Combined result was a fourth place. He became the first Olympic champion (men and women) in Alpine skiing Combined for Switzerland ever and as he used Salomon skis he won the sole gold medal for this manufacturer at Sochi. Kostelić, on Fischer skis, won their lone medal in men’s Alpine events, while Innerhofer won another medal for Rossignol.