Combined, Men1

The first ever Olympic men’s super combined was originally scheduled for Tuesday, 16 February, but the event had to be postponed due to heavy snow. At first it was moved to Friday, but the Super G was scheduled for that day, and the IOC preferred not to postpone races from the original schedule, so the super combined, which differs from the former combined event as only one slalom heat is raced, was contested on Sunday, 21 February.

The favorites were Aksel Lund Svindal, after gold in the Super G and silver in the downhill, he was also the reigning world champion in super combined, and Bode Miller, after a silver in the Super G and bronze in the downhill, and having won the World Cup super combined at Wengen earlier in the winter. Ivica Kostelić, who finished the downhill event on Monday in 18th place, and Benjamin Raich were also considered challengers. Kostelić won silver at Torino in 2006, had finished third in the 2009-10 World Cup super combined, which finished before Vancouver, and had won the last combined event at Kitzbühel about one month prior to the Games. Raich had already won the 2009-10 World Cup in the event and had one win at Val d’Isère. The first of the four combined events held in the seasonal World Cup was won by Carlo Janka at Beaver Creek. Janka had also won the combined World Cup in 2008-09 and placed second in 2009-10. Silvan Zurbriggen, second in the 2008-09 combined World Cup, and Ted Ligety, gold medalist from Torino, were also given a shot. The 2006 bronze medalist Rainer Schönfelder (ACL tear) as well as 2007 World Champion Daniel Albrecht, who had crashed horrifically in the downhill at Kitzbühel in January 2009, failed to compete in Vancouver.

The downhill saw Aksel Lund Svindal leading with 1:53.15, 0.39 seconds ahead of Dominik Paris and 0.50 seconds ahead of Carlo Janka. Ted Ligety, who finished 15th in the downhill section, set the standard in what would be the fastest slalom time, resulting in a combined time of 2:45.82. His lead held until Ivica Kostelić, starting with a 0.86 second advantage ahead of Ligety, raced to a combined time of 2:45.20 on the slalom course designed by his father. Starting two skiers later, Bode Miller skied an almost perfect slalom to take over the lead by 0.33 seconds ahead of Kostelić. Silvan Zurbrigen, skiing next, posted a combined time of 2:45.32 to put him into the bronze medal position. The final four skiers were, arguably, more downhill specialists, and had big leads over Miller after the downhill section. The first of the four, downhill gold medallist Didier Défago went out after missing a gate. Janka threatened for a while, but his time of 2:45.54 finished just outside the medals. The final two skiers, Paris and Svindal, both missed gates and failed to finish, so Bode Miller won his first Olympic gold medal at his third Games. With Miller Head won its third gold medal (and eighth in total) at this Games, while Kostelić won the first medal for Fischer with silver and Zurbriggen won bronze for Rossignol.