Beaver Creek: Super combi a hit with racers

BEAVER CREEK, Colorado — Thursday’s super combined seemed to be a hit with many World Cup racers, and for a few different reasons.  

BEAVER CREEK, Colorado — Thursday’s super combined seemed to be a hit with many World Cup racers, and for a few different reasons.   
    The super combined, which features one run of downhill and one run of slalom, differs from the traditional combined that consists of one run of downhill and two of slalom. The latter format always favored strong slalom skiers because they had two runs to make up any time deficit from their downhill run. The new format, in essence, helps even the playing field.
    “One run of slalom and one run of downhill is definitely better than it was before,” said Norway’s Aksel Lund Svindal, who won Thursday’s race despite what he called a poor downhill run. “You can look at the top five today and all of them are good slalom skiers. If there was two runs of slalom, there would be an even bigger advantage for slalom skiers. The way it is now, I think it’s fair.”
    Svindal also stated the obvious in his postrace press conference: “I like the super combined because I won today. I’m not going to sit here and say I hate it,” he said, eliciting a laugh from the reporters in the room.
    Both Svindal and Thursday’s third-place finisher, Austria’s Rainer Schoenfelder, said they appreciated how the format brings more skiers — and more nations — into play for a podium finish. The top seven finishers Thursday, in fact, hailed from seven different nations — Norway, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Slovenia, Czech Republic and France.
    “Of course I like it because this is a new discipline, but we should not overdiscuss which [type of racer] has the more opportunities to win, the downhiller or the slalom racer,” Schoenfelder said. “Look at the results today. I think the first seven are from different nations and that is very good for the sport, I think.
    “It’s very good that there are more young racers, like [second-place finisher Marc Berthod] beside me, to come on the podium. So for more nations around the world it’s more interesting with more racers in front and not all the same … like we Austrians.”
    Surprisingly, Schoenfelder was the only Austrian in the top 10 Thursday. Two of the team’s biggest guns, reigning World Cup overall champ Benni Raich and defending WC downhill champ Michael Walchhofer, failed to finish the slalom portion.
    Ted Ligety led the United States with a 10th-place finish Thursday, and Steven Nyman — who clocked the seventh-best downhill time — finished 13th overall. Marco Sullivan finished 22nd and Jimmy Cochran was 28th after the first downhill finish of his career.
    “It was good, solid. But in training I’d been fast. I just didn’t have the speed today,” Nyman said. “I expect to be on the podium in one of these this season, but it’s a decent start. I thought we’d do a little better, I thought we’d have three guys in the top 10 today.”
    First-run leader Bode Miller skied out four gates into the slalom after a sizzling downhill run that gave the former World Cup overall champion a sizable lead.
    “He pinched a gate, he’s notorious for that and it kicked his feet back, took his tempo off and he was out of the course,” Nyman said of Miller. “He pushes the line, and when it works he destroys everybody, and when it doesn’t he’s not there.”
    Asked if he thought Miller should have played it safe and raced to protect a podium finish, Nyman had a blunt reply: “He’s won enough, you know. I think he wants to destroy. And why not?”
    Sullivan, who had run just one combined in his World Cup career and failed to finish, was elated after picking up some unexpected World Cup points.
    “When I first came out of the start gate I thought there was no way I was going to finish. Then I made it two-thirds of the way down and I was like, ‘Hell yeah, I might make it,’” Sullivan said. “It was just recovery after recovery but it was fun. It was the first slalom I’ve skied in a while.”
    Asked if he prefers the one-run super combi to the traditional three-run variety, Sullivan didn’t hesitate. “Obviously for me being a speed skier, this is ideal. I only have to worry about one run of slalom. There are so many slalom gates that there is a lot of opportunity to make mistakes,” he said.