Daily Updates — Live from Nagano

Women's Combined Color Commentary by Martin Bell [click for audio]

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Transcribed from audio:
Katja Seizinger of Germany made Olympic history again, when she won the gold medal for the combined event on Tuesday.

After becoming the first ever skier to successfully defend an Olympic downhill title, she joined Austria's Petra Kronberger and Switzerland's Vreni Schneider as the only women alpine skiers to hold three gold medals.

It was a clean sweep for Germany with Martina Ertle and Hilda Gerg taking the silver and bronze medals. The other medal contenders, Sweden's Pernilla Wiberg and Austria's Renate Goetschl, both crashed out at the first run of the slalom section.

Seizinger's victory was achieved through an excellent downhill performance where she was fastest and some solid slalom skiing on the two runs where she placed 5th and 3rd.

This is in contrast to Mario Reiter's victory in the men's combined, where the slalom was the deciding factor. This was the first women's alpine skiing clean sweep since the Austrians in the 1964 downhill, but it brought back memories of the Norwegian men's clean sweep in the combined event in Lillehammer in 1994.

Seizinger will now be aiming for the record books once again in the giant slalom later this week.

— Martin Bell, Mountain Zone International Correspondent