"If it's silver, I don't care either," said the surprising leader Johannes Strolz to Aleksander Aamodt Kilde as the two waited in the winner's box for Alexis Pinturault's performance.

The Frenchman had entered the Alpine Combined as a favorite, but had almost robbed himself of all his chances with a mediocre downhill run.

Achim Dreis

sports editor.

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When Pinturault was eliminated in the slalom while trying to make the best of his deficit, it was clear that it would be gold for Strolz, the outsider from Vorarlberg, whose family history gave the competition a special touch.

Silver was secured by the Norwegian Kilde, who the day before had to comfort his heartbroken girlfriend Mikalea Shiffrin after her failure in the slalom, and now, after bronze in the Super-G, has already won his second precious metal at these winter games.

Finally, James Crawford was rewarded with bronze for his great overall performance in Beijing, because the young Canadian had already shown his great ability with fourth place in the downhill and sixth place in the Super-G.

Simon Jocher, the only German participant, retired after a botched descent in the slalom.

“I was totally dissatisfied with the descent.

I still don't quite know where the time went," Jocher quarreled.

A total of only 17 skiers made it into the rankings, after only 27 had even entered the competition - which was certainly no advertisement for the already controversial discipline.

"Of course that's an indictment," said Jocher about the small starting field in Yanqing.

But the winners didn't care and an Olympic medal is an Olympic medal.

Barnabas Szollos, a Hungarian-born ski enthusiast who lives in Austria, trains in South Tyrol and competes for Israel, caused a surprise.

The 23-year-old conjured up the second-best slalom time in the artificial snow and ended up sixth in the overall standings, just 1.75 seconds behind.

On the other hand, the two Chinese Yangming Zhang and Mingfu Xu, who occupied the last two places a good 18 and 28 seconds behind, should be assigned to the category "being there is everything".

The story of the day was undoubtedly written by Johannes Strolz, who surprisingly came fourth in the downhill and, thanks to the best time in the slalom, surprisingly reached the peak of his career at the age of 29.

He also inherited his father Hubert, who was also an Olympic champion in Calgary in 1988, and today runs a cattle breeding farm in his home country and also runs the Warth am Arlberg ski school – on the other side of the Arlberg, mind you .

Although Strolz Junior had already made his debut in the World Cup in 2013, he hadn't made it past individual assignments and mostly commuted between the European Cup and the World Cup.

He had long since dropped out of the Austrian squad, he had to do the preparation of his skis himself, mostly he trained with the Germans.

His alpine career seemed to end gently in nowhere for him.

But in the current season, Johannes Strolz suddenly remembered.

After Adrian Pertl, who came second in the slalom world championships, tore his cruciate ligament, there was a vacancy in the team.

Strolz pushed his way back into the World Cup and caused a formidable sensation in early January when he won the difficult World Cup slalom in Adelboden, which he started with start number 38 and finished as champion.

Qualifying for the Olympics came as a surprise given his background.

The gold medal now provided the special punch line of a seemingly impossible career.

This also includes the fact that father Hubert, just like his son, only won one World Cup race: and this also exactly four weeks before the Olympics.