Triumph of the Austrian Johannes Strolz in the combined alpine skiing of the Olympic Games in Beijing 2022.
A historic gold because it was won 34 years after that of his father Hubert who had imposed himself in the same discipline at the Olympics in Calgary ’88 but went down in history for being ‘the eternal second’ with 34 podiums and only one victory in the World Cup.
Today on the Chinese snows of Yanqing, the 29-year-old skier from Vorarlberg, who on January 9 had risen for the first time on the podium in the Cup by winning the slalom in Adelboden, won over the Norwegian sprinter Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, trailing by 59 cents and the second medal in a few days after the bronze in supergiant.
Bronze went to Canadian James Crawford just one cent from silver. The only blue in the race, Christof Innerhofer finished tenth at 4 ″ 37 from Strolz. Innerhofer, 37 years old from South Tyrol, twice medalist at the 2014 Sochi Games between downhill (silver) and combined (bronze), is the only athlete in the world to have played all the combined races since his first in 2007 at Reiteralm .