SAALBACH-HINTERGLEMM, Austria — Franjo von Allmen became a double world champion and Loic Meillard claimed his fourth career world championship medal when the Swiss pair won gold in the new team combined event Wednesday.
They led a Swiss sweep of the worlds podium, finishing 0.27 seconds ahead of silver medalists Alexis Monney and Tanguy Nef. Stefan Rogentin and Marc Rochat were 0.43 behind and took bronze.
“Totally crazy, three Swiss teams on the podium is amazing,” said Meillard, who has a silver and two bronzes from previous worlds. “I think everyone on the team is going crazy.”
It’s the third gold medal for the Swiss team at these worlds after Marco Odermatt won the super-G and Von Allmen took the downhill. Switzerland won silver in the mixed-team parallel event last week.
“Incredibly cool,” said Von Allmen, adding his recent results were a surprise for himself. “I am still satisfied with any top-10 result. That is still good for me in my second World Cup season. What is happening here, I can’t put it into words.”
The American team of Ryan Cochran-Siegle and Benjamin Ritchie finished fourth and missed a medal by 0.26 seconds, a day after Mikaela Shiffrin and Breezy Johnson won gold in the women’s event.
The team combined entails one racer competing in a downhill run and another in a slalom, with their two times added up to determine the final results. The event will make its debut at next year’s Milan-Cortina Olympics.
Monney posted the fastest time in the downhill portion, giving his teammate Nef a slim advantage of 0.02 seconds over Meillard to start the slalom. However, Meillard completed his slalom run nearly three-tenths of a second faster than Nef.
After waiting for Nef to come down, Monney leaped over barriers and ran into the finish area to embrace his teammate as the six-man Swiss party got started.
It is the first Swiss sweep of a men’s podium at worlds since Peter Mueller, Pirmin Zurbriggen and Karl Alpiger won gold, silver and bronze in downhill at their home 1987 worlds in Crans Montana.
Italy 1, with downhiller Dominik Paris and slalom racer Alex Vinatzer, was 0.46 seconds behind in third after the downhill portion, but Vinatzer straddled a gate and became one of the nine slalom skiers who failed to finish their runs.
After early rain, the downhill portion was delayed for about 15 minutes twice as low clouds moved over the upper part of the course and reduced visibility for the racers.
“I pretty like bad light, maybe weird, but I like it,” Monney said.
Von Allmen struggled early in his run when he came off the race line and skied into the soft snow outside the blue lines. He just managed to make the next gate and then made up almost all the time he lost.
“That can happen. I tried to make the best out of it,” said Von Allmen, adding he had “a bit more space in his helmet” as he and the entire Swiss downhill team shaved hair off their heads after its successes in Sunday’s downhill.
Odermatt skipped the team combined, opting to prepare for the giant slalom on Friday, but the Swiss star attended the race and joined in the celebration.
The leader of the slalom standings, Henrik Kristoffersen of Norway, also sat out the event.
The next race is the women’s giant slalom on Thursday, which defending champion Shiffrin will sit out as she feels not ready yet to compete in GS following her crash in November.
