Miller Sixth in Sochi Super Combined
ROSA KHUTOR, Russia (Feb. 14) – Five-time Olympian Bode Miller (Franconia, NH) skied into sixth at a particularly tricky slalom race Friday during the super combined event of the 2014 Sochi Olympic Winter Games. Wet snow and a challenging slalom course set bumped 10 out of 30 athletes out of the race, but Swiss skier Sandro Viletta was able to carve out the victory to become the first Swiss to ever win super combined gold. A recap of the super combined downhill and slalom is set to air on NBC at 7:00 p.m. EST, and the event can be streamed in its entirety on NBCOlympics.com. The Olympic super G weekend kicks off Saturday Feb. 15 with the women, while the men race Sunday.
HIGHTLIGHTS
- Five-time Olympian Bode Miller (Franconia, NH) finished sixth in the 2014 Olympic Winter Games super combined.
- Jared Goldberg (Holladay, UT) matched his career best World Cup finish with 11th in his first Olympic race.
- Defending super combined World Champion Ted Ligety (Park City, UT) was right behind in 12th.
- Andrew Weibrecht (Lake Placid, NY) was one of 10 racers out of the top 30 downhill finishers to not finish the slalom.
- Swiss Sandro Viletta captured gold ahead of Ivica Kostelic of Croatia and Italian Christof Innerhofer.
- As predicted, warm temperatures affected the downhill, which was moved up an hour, but snow conditions remained consistent for the late afternoon slalom.
- A recap of the super combined downhill and slalom is scheduled to air on NBC at 7:00 p.m. EST, and the event can be streamed in its entirety on NBCOlympics.com.
- The Olympic super G weekend kicks off Saturday Feb. 15 with the women, featuring super combined bronze medalist Julia Mancuso (Squaw Valley, CA), Stacey Cook (Mammoth Mountain, CA), Leanne Smith (North Conway, NH) and Laurenne Ross (Bend, OR).
- The men race super G on Sunday, and Miller, Ligety, Weibrecht and Travis Ganong (Squaw Valley, CA) are set to start.
QUOTES
Bode Miller
Today was tough. It was tough for everybody. I don’t think anybody came down that thing feeling awesome…maybe Viletta, I’m not sure. Everybody was kind of struggling.
These days with these conditions, you can’t make mistakes. I went through today pushing hard. I’m trying and doing everything I can to try to be fast, but the margins are so small right now. I knew I had to push hard, it’s just unfortunate that this course was too tough for me. When I pushed hard I just ended up making a bunch of mistakes.
The mistakes don't look as dramatic...but the mistakes I made were just deceleration. You can feel them, and I could tell halfway down. I started trying to look for too much and then I made more. I could just feel the speed going away.
The tactics are there. The skiing is there. You just can't make mistakes like I did today.
Ted Ligety
The snow was a lot better than I thought it’d be and the course set was a lot easier than I thought it’d be and I just skied conservatively. To put it simply, I choked, for sure. That’s disappointing and it would have been easier to be a lot faster but it didn’t go that way. It doesn’t change anything for the next events. It’s just a bummer.
I respected the course too much. In inspection the snow was really bad. I thought it was going to get really broken up and the one guy I watched at the top blew out. I knew (Alexis) Pinturault went out as well so I didn’t think it would take a run that was 100 percent in order to come down and get a medal. When it’s snow like this and it’s so wet, just that little bit, that 10 percent or 15 percent less, cost you a ton of time. It’s the kind of thing where I just didn’t match my intensity for what it would have taken for me to get a medal.
It would have been nice to get a medal today, but there are still a lot of events left and there’s still a lot of racing and it’s all totally different events and racing than it was today. I’m still confident in my ability in giant slalom, super G and slalom.
Jared Goldberg
I was happy to have made it down and been pretty fast. It was an ugly course with tons of combos and it wasn’t easy at all. I’m super psyched to be in the top 15. I’ve been skiing really well and I’ve been there in World Cup and to do it here with all the pressure…I’m super excited about that. I know in the future I can do way better. I’ve just been trying to be super aggressive and that’s worked out pretty well.
Andrew Weibrecht
I came off the top and felt like I skied okay up there and then came onto a flat and picked up a lot of speed. Then I just hooked my tip on a gate and then I was sliding. It was a super quick thing. All of a sudden I was out.
I think a lot of guys DNF’d because it’s a funky set. I think the course setting had a big thing to do with it and there’s just a lot of opportunities to make weird mistakes. There’s not a whole lot of rhythm or flow to the course. So that just lends itself to DNFs.
RESULTS
Official Results
