The Men’s Alpine Skiing World Cup has one of its biggest classics this weekend, the Lauberhorn races in Wengen. The weekend has started with an alpine combined race on Friday and will continue with a downhill on Saturday and a slalom on Sunday.
Alpine Combined
Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway dominated the downhill leg of alpine combined on the shortened Lauberhorn course. His gap to the second-placed Adrien Théaux of France was 0.72 seconds. The third place of the downhill leg was tied between Norway’s Kjetil Jansrud, the alpine combined silver medalist at last year’s World Championships, and Austria’s Hannes Reichelt, 0.90 seconds behind Svindal.
The winner of last year’s Lauberhorn combined, Carlo Janka of Switzerland, finished the downhill leg in ninth place, 1.48 seconds from Svindal.
Technical specialists Alexis Pinturault, Victor Muffat-Jeandet and Ted Ligety were expected to be among the favorites for the combined. The 2013 Lauberhorn combined winner Pinturault finished the downhill leg in 24th place. He lost 2.53 seconds to Svindal, which might be a doable gap for the slalom leg, especially as he would be the seventh starter in the slalom leg, thanks to the reverse starting order of the top 30.
Muffat-Jeandet and Ligety didn’t get the benefit of the reversed starting order as they missed the top 30. Last year's Lauberhorn combined runner-up Muffat-Jeandet finished the downhill leg in 36th place, 3.19 seconds from Svindal and missed the top 30 by 0.20 seconds. The 2014 winner Ligety finished the downhill leg in 38th place, 0.03 seconds behind Muffat-Jeandet.
Pinturault couldn't progress the way he was expected to. Starting as the seventh man on course, he went to second place behind Croatia's Natko Zrnčić-Dim and was 13th in the final results.
The first man to beat Zrnčić-Dim was Slovenia's Klemen Kosi. 23rd after the downhill leg, he set the quickest slalom run and progressed into seventh place in the final results.
Kosi remained as the leader until the run of Switzerland's Marc Gisin, 12th of the downhill leg. Gisin has to give up the lead immediately as the next man on course, Thomas Mermillod-Blondin of France, claimed the lead with the second-quickest slalom run.
Ninth of the downhill leg, last year's winner Carlo Janka was having a great slalom run, extending his lead over Mermillod-Blondin. However, with the finish already in sight, he missed a gate on the final section of the course and didn't finish the race. With the pace he was showing, his run might have been enough for the win even without the mistake.
Mermillod-Blondin was still leading when there were only the first run's four quickest men and those outside the top 30 remaining. Tied for third on the downhill leg, Kjetil Jansrud was having a solid slalom run. Starting with an advantage of 0.74 seconds over Mermillod-Blondin, he still had an advantage of 0.50 seconds at the final split. Even with a big mistake but an incredible save on the final section, he claimed the lead by 0.28 seconds.
Hannes Reichelt, sharing the downhill leg's third place with Jansrud, didn't start the slalom leg. So the next man to start was Adrien Théaux. His lead of 0.18 seconds over Jansrud after the downhill leg wasn't enough but he went into second place, 0.13 seconds behind.
The leader after the downhill leg, Aksel Lund Svindal had a lead of 0.90 seconds over Jansrud before the slalom leg. The two-time World gold medalist in combined was still 0.19 seconds ahead Jansrud at the final split. Still, despite Jansrud's mistake late in his run, Svindal missed his time by 0.04 seconds and went into second place, bumping Mermillod-Blondin off the podium.
None of those starting after the top 30 of the downhill leg could affect the order on top. Jansrud scored his second win of the World Cup season, his first career in alpine combined where he achieved the silver medal at last year's World Championships.
The alpine combined gold medalist of last year's Worlds, Marcel Hirscher of Austria, didn't participate in the combined event in Wengen. He remains in the overall World Cup lead by 85 points to Svindal. Henrik Kristoffersen is in third place, 230 points behind Hirscher, and Jansrud is in fourth place, 60 points behind Kristoffersen.
Downhill on Saturday
The weekend continues with the Lauberhorn downhill on Saturday. With a length of over 4.4 kilometers (2.7 miles), it’s the longest downhill on the World Cup tour, lasting over two and a half minutes instead of around two minutes as usual.
Three training runs were scheduled for the downhill, yet weather conditions allowed only one training, and even that had to be carried on a shortened course that was also used in alpine combined. An additional training for the top section is planned for Saturday morning, allowing racing on the full course on Saturday afternoon.
Although he has never won in Wengen but finished third at best in downhill, the downhill World Cup leader Aksel Lund Svindal was the quickest in the only training run on Thursday, as well as in the combined downhill leg. Still, in the training, the 24-year-old Austrian Vincent Kriechmayr was just 0.04 seconds behind. He's only 10th in this season's downhill World Cup, yet he's had some good performances in Wengen, finishing third last year and fourth two years ago in the shortened combined downhill leg. However in Friday's combined, he was only 16th in the downhill leg, 2.07 seconds from Svindal.
Italy's Peter Fill had a good early season and is fourth in the downhill World Cup. He finished his training run in third place, just 0.08 seconds from Svindal. In the combined downhill leg, he didn't do as well but was seventh, 1.40 seconds from Svindal.
The winner of the season's previous downhill race in Santa Caterina, Adrien Théaux, continued good performances with a second place in the combined downhill leg, although he lost 0.72 seconds to Svindal. That was much better than in Thursday's training when he was only 25th, 2.71 seconds from Svindal.
Hannes Reichelt is the defending Lauberhorn downhill winner. Besides the third place finish in the combined downhill leg, 0.90 seconds from Svindal, he finished Thursday's training run in fourth place, 0.44 seconds from Svindal.
Sharing third place with Reichelt in the combined downhill leg was Kjetil Jansrud. Like his countryman Svindal, Jansrud has never won the downhill in Wengen in his successful career. His best result is a fifth place finish from last year. In the training he was fifth, 0.59 seconds from Svindal.
Guillermo Fayed has been one of the best downhill skiers of the past two seasons. Although he is still aiming for his maiden win, he has scored four podium finishes during the past two seasons, finished third in last season's downhill World Cup and is currently second in the downhill World Cup. He was seventh in the downhill training, 1.09 seconds from Svindal.
As it's Wengen, one must not forget Carlo Janka. The Swiss has a great record of eight podium finishes in Wengen with three of them in downhill (won in 2010, third in 2011 and 2015). So far this weekend his performances don't promise another podium finish; besides the ninth place in the combined downhill leg, 1.48 seconds behind Svindal, he was 11th on Thursday's training run, 1.67 seconds behind Svindal.
Another Swiss, Beat Feuz, is making his comeback after a partial right Achilles tendon tear he suffered in summer training in late August. The 2012 Lauberhorn downhill winner and last year's runner-up isn't in full form yet; in the training he was only 55th, 4.35 seconds from Svindal. In the combined downhill leg he did much better; he was already 10th, 1.55 seconds from Svindal.