American Julia Mancuso won her second silver medal in two days with an impressive showing in Thursday’s Women’s Super Combined. Lindsey Vonn, who was the event’s leader after the downhill portion, clipped a gate in the slalom and crashed, ending her hopes of a second medal (for now, at least).
Julia Mancuso Wins Women’s Combined Silver, Germany’s Riesch Takes Gold
Germany’s Maria Riesch, perhaps best known to American viewers as Vonn’s best friend, won the gold. Anja Paerson of Sweden, who we last saw suffering a frightening crash in Wednesday’s Downhill, took bronze for the second straight Olympics.
The Combined event is one downhill run in the morning, followed by a slalom run later in the day. The two times are added together, and the fastest total wins.
Lindsey Vonn won the morning’s downhill portion, turning in a time of 1:24.16. Riesch was second, 0.33 seconds behind, and Mancuso third, 0.80 seconds back.
The medal was determined in the final runs of the afternoon’s slalom. Paerson took over first, until Mancuso skied and beat her by just 0.11. But the American’s time as the leader was short lived -- Riesch went next and smoked the field, taking the lead by almost a full second (0.94).
Vonn, who was in first entering the slalom, skied last. She started with a 0.33 advantage, but quickly found herself up only 0.07 just before her right ski clipped a gate, sending her sprawling to the snow. She had not practiced slalom in two weeks while she was resting her injured shin.
The women return to the slopes on Saturday for the Super-G (super giant slalom).
More: SB Nation’s full coverage of the Winter Olympics and the 2010 Winter Olympics Medal Count Tracker.
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