|
Bode Miller wins Gold in Super Combine |
|
|
|
|
Sunday, 21 February 2010 |
|
In a storybook-like and improbable outcome, the USA's Bode Miller came from seventh place to win gold - his third medal of these Games - in the men's super combined today after a blistering run in the slalom.
The skiers who were ahead of him after the morning downhill portion of the event couldn't catch him in the slalom or faltered on the 41-gate course.
It follows Miller's bronze in the downhill and silver in the Super-G. He now has five career Olympic medals - he has been in four Games, dating to Nagano in 1998 - but this is his first gold. According to the U.S. Olympic Committee, Miller ties the record for most alpine skiing medals by a man at a single Winter Olympics, becoming the sixth man to win three alpine medals at a single Olympic Winter Games
The victory also extends the U.S. alpine medal-winning streak in each of the first six events of the Games. It is the eighth alpine medal for the U.S. here.
After the super combined downhill, which was raced in the morning (PT), Miller stood seventh, 76-hundredths of a second behind the leader, A.L. Svindal of Norway. He started 23rd in the slalom and blasted almost flawlessly through the gates to record the third-fastest slalom run (51.01 seconds), giving him a combined time of 2 minutes, 44.92 seconds.
He then watched from the finish line as the top six racers from the downhill skied the slalom. Three, including Svindal and second-place Dominik Paris, crashed out of the course and did not finish. Three others, including third-place Carlo Janka, were slower.
Ivica Kostelic of Croatia is second (33-hundredths of a second behind Miller) and Silvan Zurbriggen of Switzerland is third.
Meanwhile, Ted Ligety of the U.S., the gold medalist in the event in 2006, had the fastest slalom run (50.76 seconds) to bolt from 15th to fifth place with a total time of 2:45.82.
|
