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Men's Combined Technical Analysis [click for audio]

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Infamous Turn Trap Gone
The almighty Austrian ski team who had suffered the disappointment of winning just one bronze medal in the men's downhill, made up for it in the men's combined event by taking the gold medal through the 27-year-old Mario Reiter, who is known as "Super Mario" in his own country.

Reiter, a slalom specialist, built up nearly a two-second lead in the first slalom section of the event a few days previously.

On the downhill section, the course was shorter than that for the main downhill and therefore the difficult top section, where Hermann Maier had crashed so spectacularly, was no longer a problem.

In general, the time differences between the racers were smaller than they had been in the slalom section, and it was difficult for the downhill specialists to make up ground on the slalom specialists.

Lasse Kjus, of Norway, managed to achieve a second silver medal to go with the one that he had won earlier that day in the men's downhill and in doing so became the first ever skier to win two Olympic medals in one day.

Christian Mayer, of Austria, skied excellently in the downhill section, considering he is primarily a giant slalom skier, to take the bronze medal.

Thirty-three-year-old Austrian veteran Guenther Mader placed 4th, only eight-hundredths of a second away from a medal, and Polish skier, Andrzej Bachleda, finished a creditable 5th.

There were only 15 finishers in total, allowing Irishman Paul Patrick Schwarzacher-Joyce to claim 15th place. Norwegian favorite Kjetil Andre Aamodt crashed in the downhill, and there were also no North American finishers.

— Martin Bell, Mountain Zone International Correspondent

Final Results

1 REITER, Mario  Austria [AUT]   3:08.06
2 KJUS, Lasse  Norway [NOR]  3:08.65 
3 MAYER, Christian Austria [AUT] 3:10.11
4 MADER, Guenther Austria [AUT] 3:10.19
5 BACHLEDA, Andrzej  Poland [POL] 3:11.53
6 FATTORI, Alessandro Italy [ITA] 3:17.00
7 BREZAVSEK, Ales Slovenia [SLO] 3:20.09
8 PEN, Peter Slovenia [SLO] 3:20.81
9 HASLER, Juergen Liechtenstein [LIE] 3:23.15
10 SELETTO, Erik Italy [ITA] 3:23.23
11 GROB, Thomas Chile [CHI] 3:28.60
12 SKRIABIN, Nikolay Ukraine [UKR] 3:30.25
13 GROB, Rainer Chile [CHI] 3:34.49
14 DJIDJISHVILI, Zourab Georgia [GEO] 3:35.65
15 SCHWARZACHER-JOYCE, Paul Patrick Ireland [IRL] 3:39.03

CATTANEO, Luca Italy [ITA] Did Not Start
GHEDINA, Kristian  Italy [ITA] Did Not Start
MAIER, Hermann Austria [AUT] Did Not Start
AAMODT, Kjetil Andre  Norway [NOR] Did Not Finish
MAXA, Marcel  Czech Republic [CZE] Disqualified
JAGGE, Finn Chr.  Norway [NOR] Did Not Start