Johannes Strolz of Austria overcame adversity to win Olympic alpine combined gold on Thursday, following in the footsteps of his father.
Strolz, who was fourth after the first downhill, clocked the quickest slalom run to finish first in a combined time of 2min 31.43sec, matching his father Hubert’s performance at the 1988 Calgary Olympics.
Aleksander Aamodt Kilde of Norway added silver to his super-G bronze, finishing 0.59sec behind the victor, with James Crawford of Canada collecting bronze at 0.68sec, a well-deserved prize after coming fourth in the downhill and sixth in the super-G.
The result crowned a remarkable comeback for Strolz, whose poor form on the World Cup circuit led to him being dropped from the demanding Austrian team.
It resulted in the 29-year-old funding his own way on the circuit and working for a time as a traffic cop, but his rise in form was clear for all to see.
Strolz still prepares his own skis, but this season had a breakthrough victory in the Swiss resort of Adelboden despite starting with the lowly bib number of 38 normally worn by rank outsiders.
His gold was Austria’s second in alpine skiing at the Beijing Games after Matthias Mayer won the super-G.
In another family parallel, Mayer’s father Helmut won silver in the super-G for Austria as a teammate of Strolz’s father in Calgary.
Kilde made good on advice given to him to “keep up the tempo” by his American girlfriend Mikaela Shiffrin, who has had a disastrous start to the Games after sliding out of her two favored events.
“It was quite amazing. I haven’t skied slalom in two years. I just had a good feeling when I was skiing. I went for it, just pointed the skis and tried to stay in balance,” the 29-year-old Norwegian said.
“It’s huge. What an Olympic Games it has been. Of course some emotions on the way, but still quite amazing.”
World champion Marco Schwarz made a mistake in the afternoon slalom, the Austrian eventually finishing fifth behind Switzerland’s Justin Murisier.
And France’s pre-race favorite Alexis Pinturault’s hopes of an elusive Olympic gold took a hit with a disappointing downhill and then evaporated as he crashed out of the slalom.
The alpine combined, although no longer part of the World Cup circuit, is the oldest alpine event, invented in the Swiss resort of Wengen in 1932 and adopted for the Olympics four years later.
It remains the ultimate test for all-round skiers, but with technical and speed skiers becoming increasingly more specialized, the morning downhill in Yanqing had the fewest participation of its 12 Olympic appearances, with only 27 skiers from 17 countries competing.
The Nagano Games in 1998 had the second-lowest turnout, with 38 racers from 21 countries competing.
