By Simon Evans
YANQING, China (Reuters) – Austria’s Christine Scheyer was in pole position after the downhill leg of the women’s combined on Thursday but American favourite Mikaela Shiffrin was within striking distance as she searches for her first medal of the Beijing Games.
Scheyer completed the downhill in 1:32.42, putting her one hundredth of a second ahead of Czech Ester Ledecka, who is searching for another Olympic double after winning gold again in snowboard’s parallel giant slalom.
Shiffrin was fifth fastest in the speed event, 0.56 off the lead but the American will fancy her chances of making up that time in her preferred slalom.
The American, who is the reigning world champion in combined and took silver medal in the 2018 Winter Olympics, said she had used Italian downhiller Sofia Goggia’s downhill skis but admitted she now had to overcome some mental hurdles for the slalom.
Shiffrin came into the Games as the leading technical skier of recent years but she dramatically failed to finish her first runs in both the slalom and the giant slalom and surprisingly remains without a medal in Beijing.
“It’s nice to know I have some practice and certainly a lot of speed in slalom but I also have a little bit of, I don’t know, I have to overcome the image that I am going to ski out on the fifth gate,” she said, referring to the section that troubled her in both her exits.
“I am just trying to stay calm because I think I was doing pretty well with that this morning. Stay calm and have a good run at slalom.
“I am really excited to have another chance at racing on the rest of the tech track. That’s going to be nice,” she said.
The American then finished ninth in the super-G and 18th in the downhill but she is part of an exciting group of women skiers who are comfortable in both technical and speed events.
Scheyer is more at home in the speed races but has clearly had the combined in mind and said she had carried out several slalom training days during the Games.
“Slalom makes me more nervous because I am doing it much less than downhill but I am excited (for the second run), we will see,” she said.
Defending combined Olympic champion Michelle Gisin of Switzerland was a full second behind Scheyer’s time.
Austrian downhiller Ramona Siebenhofer was 0.14 off the lead with France’s Romane Miradoli also well positioned in fourth place, 0.53 behind Scheyer.
(Reporting by Simon Evans, additional reporting by Simon Jennings; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Jacqueline Wong)
