Combined is an event in alpine ski racing. The event format has changed within the last 30 years. A traditional combined competition is a two-day event consisting of one run of downhill and two runs of slalom; each discipline takes place on a separate day. The winner is the skier with the fastest aggregate time. Until the 1990s, a complicated point system was used to determine placings in the combined event. Since then, a modified version, called either a "super combined" (with a downhill as the speed event) or an "Alpine combined" (with a super-G as the speed event), has been run as an aggregate time event consisting of two runs: first, a one-run speed event and then only one run of slalom, with both portions held on the same day.
The last Alpine World Ski Championships in 1931 did not include the combined event, but it was added to the program in 1932. Alpine skiing at the Winter Olympics was not included until 1936, and the combined was the only event. The combined was one of three medal events at the next Olympics in 1948, along with downhill and slalom. The combined used the results of the only downhill race with two runs of combined slalom. The regular slalom (two runs) was held the following day.
With the introduction of giant slalom at the world championships in 1950, the combined event disappeared from the Olympics for four decades, until re-introduced in 1988. From 1948 through 1980, the Winter Olympics also served as the world championships, with two sets of medals awarded. The world champion in the combined was determined "on paper" by the results of the three races of downhill, giant slalom, and slalom. The top three finishers in the combined event were awarded world championship medals by the FIS, but not Olympic medals from the BBC. This three-race paper method was used from 1954 through 1980; no FIS medals were awarded for the combined in 1950 or 1952. A separate downhill and slalom for the combined event was added to the world championships in 1982, and the Olympics in 2024.
The world championships were held annually from 1931 through 1939, were interrupted by World War II, and resumed as a biennial event at the 1948 Olympics, held in even-numbered years through 1982. They skipped the 1984 Olympics and have been scheduled for odd-numbered years since 1985. (The 1995 event was postponed to 1996, due to lack of snow in southeastern Spain.)
At the Winter Olympics and world championships, the slalom and downhill portions of a combined event are run separately from the regular downhill and slalom events on shorter, and often less demanding, race courses. On the World Cup circuit, traditional combined events have been "paper races," combining skiers' times from a separately scheduled downhill race and slalom race, generally held at the same location over two days. In 2005, the FIS began to replace these "calculated" combineds with super combined events, held on one day, which administrators hope will result in increased participation. [1]
A modified version, the super combined or Alpine combined, is a speed race (downhill or super-G) and only one run of slalom, with both portions scheduled on the same day. Because slalom courses generally become slower after the first racers, recent changes to the super combined or Alpine combined events have the fastest racers from the speed race start first in the slalom run, which is a revision to the prior structure of starting the slalom run in reverse order, as is done in the second run of a traditional two-run slalom.
The first super combined was a World Cup race held in 2005 in Wengen, Switzerland, on January 14; Benjamin Raich of Austria was the winner. The first women's race in the new format was run six weeks later in San Sicario, Italy; won by Croatia's Janica Kostelić on February 27. The 2006 World Cup calendar included three super combineds and just one traditional combined race on the men's side, while the women raced two super combineds and no traditional combineds. Kostelić won the first three women's World Cup super combineds.
Beginning with the 2007 season, the FIS began awarding a fifth discipline-champion "crystal globe" to the points winner of combined races; the 2007 season included five combined races for each gender. [2] Nine out of the ten scheduled combineds use the new super-combined format, the only exception was Kitzbühel, Austria, which continued with the traditional two-run format (K), albeit in a "paper race." The change to super combined expectedly resulted in major disapproval from the slalom specialists, the loudest critic being Ivica Kostelić. Even with the change to a single slalom run, many speed skiers believe the technical racers have the advantage in the super combined. [3] [4]
The super combined format debuted at the world championships in 2007 in Åre, Sweden, and at the Winter Olympics in 2010 at Whistler, Canada.
In the following table men's combined (super combined from 2007) World Cup podiums in the World Cup since first edition in 1976. [5]
Hannelore (Hanni) Wenzel is a retired Liechtensteiner alpine ski racer. Weirather is a former Olympic, World Cup, and world champion. She won Liechtenstein's first-ever Olympic medal at the 1976 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria, and its first two Olympic gold medals four years later in Lake Placid, New York.
The FIS Alpine Ski World Cup is the top international circuit of alpine skiing competitions, launched in 1966 by a group of ski racing friends and experts which included French journalist Serge Lang and the alpine ski team directors from France and the USA. It was soon backed by International Ski Federation president Marc Hodler during the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships 1966 at Portillo, Chile, and became an official FIS event in the spring of 1967 after the FIS Congress at Beirut, Lebanon.
Giant slalom (GS) is an alpine skiing and alpine snowboarding competitive discipline. It involves racing between sets of poles ("gates") spaced at a greater distance from each other than in slalom but less than in Super-G.
Super giant slalom, or super-G, is a racing discipline of alpine skiing. Along with the faster downhill, it is regarded as a "speed" event, in contrast to the technical events giant slalom and slalom. It debuted as an official World Cup event during the 1983 season and was added to the official schedule of the World Championships in 1987 and the Winter Olympics in 1988.
Janica Kostelić is a Croatian former alpine ski racer. She is a four-time Olympic gold medalist. In addition to the Olympics, she won five gold medals at the World Championships. In World Cup competition, she won thirty individual races, three overall titles, three slalom titles, and four combined titles. Kostelic's accomplishments in professional skiing have led some commentators, writers, and fellow ski racers to regard her as the greatest female ski racer of all time.
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Marlies Raich is a retired Austrian World Cup alpine ski racer. She specializes in the technical disciplines of slalom and giant slalom. Schild won four Olympic medals, with silvers in the combined (2006) and slalom and a bronze in slalom (2006). She has seven World Championship medals and has won five World Cup season titles.
Ivica Kostelić is a Croatian former alpine ski racer. He specialized in slalom and combined, but was also one of the few alpine World Cup ski racers able to score points in all disciplines. He is the brother of skiing champion Janica Kostelić. In his career he was coached by his father Ante Kostelić, as well as by Kristian Ghedina and Tomislav Krstičević.
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Theodore Sharp Ligety is a retired American alpine ski racer, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, and an entrepreneur, having cofounded Shred Optics. Ligety won the combined event at the 2006 Olympics in Turin and the giant slalom race at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi. He is also a five-time World Cup champion in giant slalom. Ligety won the gold medal in the giant slalom at the 2011 World Championships. He successfully defended his world title in giant slalom in 2013 in Schladming, Austria, where he also won an unexpected gold medal in the super-G and a third gold medal in the super combined.
The men's combined was held on Tuesday, 14 February, two days after the downhill. The combined competition, as the name suggests, is a combination where the times in the downhill racing and the slalom events are added. One run of downhill and two runs of slalom are used to determine overall ranking in the combined event. All three runs were held in a single day.
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Kjetil Jansrud is a Norwegian former World Cup alpine ski racer and Olympic champion. He competed in all alpine disciplines apart from slalom, and his best event was the giant slalom where he has six World Cup podiums and an Olympic silver medal. Since 2012, he had concentrated on the speed events, where all but two of his World Cup victories had come. At the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, he won the super-G and placed third in the downhill. At the World Championships in 2019 at Åre, Jansrud won gold in the downhill.
The men's super combined competition of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics was held at Whistler Creekside in Whistler, British Columbia. The competition was scheduled for February 16, but was postponed due to weather delays in preceding races; it was held five days later on February 21. American athlete Bode Miller won his only Olympic gold medal, Ivica Kostelić of Croatia won silver, and Silvan Zurbriggen of Switzerland took the bronze.
Alexis Pinturault is a French World Cup alpine ski racer and Olympic medalist.
Beat Feuz is a Swiss former World Cup alpine ski racer, specializing in the speed events of downhill and super-G. He is 2017 World champion and 2022 Olympic champion in downhill. In 2021, he won consecutive downhills on the famed Streif at Kitzbühel.
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The Men's combined in the 2020 FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup involved 3 events, all of which were completed before the season was halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A major change was made in the discipline this season due to the recent dominance of slalom specialists in the combined over speed racers. As was previously the case, the first run continued to be the speed discipline. The second run then started in reverse order of finish in the speed run, which allowed the slalom specialists to tackle fresh snow as the first down the hill in the slalom run, while the speed specialists had to face the more challenging rutted snow at the end of the day, as the last skiers of the 30 who qualified for the second run. Instead, the second run was changed to start in the same order as the finish of the speed run, so that the leader after the speed run became the first to race on the fresh slalom course.
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