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Alpine skiing combined
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Combined is an alpine skiing event. Although not technically a "discipline" of its own, it is sometimes referred to as a fifth alpine discipline, along with downhill, super G, giant slalom, and slalom.
A combined traditionally consists of one run of downhill and two runs of slalom, in that order, although recently the International Ski Federation (FIS) has introduced the super combined (or "super combi"), consisting of just a single run of slalom (which may be run first) and either a shortened downhill run or a super G run. In either type of combined event, the winner is the skier with the fastest aggregate time for both portions of the race.
Alpine skiing made its first appearance in the 1936 Winter Olympics as a combined event.
In the Winter Olympics and World Championships, the slalom and downhill portions of a combined event are run separately from the regular slalom and downhill, on shorter courses. On the World Cup circuit, combined events have often been "paper races," combining skiers' times from a separately scheduled downhill race and slalom race, generally held at the same location over two days. Recently, the FIS has begun to replace these "calculated" combineds with super combi events held all on one day, which administrators hope will convince more skiers from more nations to compete in all disciplines[1]. The first super combi was a World Cup race held on January 14, 2005, in Wengen, Switzerland; Benjamin Raich of Austria was the winner. The first women's race in the new format was run in San Sicario, Italy, on February 27, 2005 and won by Croatia's Janica Kostelić. The next season, the 2005-06 World Cup calendar included, on the men's side, three super combis and just one traditional combined race, while the women raced two super combis and no traditional combineds. (Kostelić has won all three World Cup super combis held so far.)
The FIS has announced its intention to begin awarding a fifth discipline-champion "crystal globe" to the points winner of combined races in each World Cup season beginning with the 2006-07 edition, which includes five combined races for each gender.[2] Nine out of the ten scheduled combineds use the new super combi format.