ST. MORITZ, Switzerland — Unheralded Swiss racer Luca Aerni produced a remarkable slalom run to edge defending champion Marcel Hirscher for an improbable gold in the men’s alpine combined at the World Ski Championships on Monday.
Aerni, 23, had scraped into the slalom after finishing 30th in the opening downhill — six-hundredths of a second slower, equating to 1.68 meters, and he would have missed the cut.
But his barnstorming slalom saw him clock a combined time of 2min 26.33sec, making up a deficit of 2.61sec on the downhill.
Aerni finished just 0.01sec ahead of Austrian Hirscher, who was 28th after the downhill. The host nation’s medal haul continued as Mauro Caviezel took bronze, a further five-hundredths adrift.
“I was really nervous in the last 45 minutes waiting for everyone to finish,” said Aerni, who was only named to the combined team late Sunday.
“I could only watch and hope as the others came down. I knew my slalom run was good, but with the combined you never know what will happen. It was definitely a long wait until I realized I had the gold medal!”
Aerni was the least favored of a Swiss quartet that also included Carlo Janka and Justin Murisier, the latter seemingly best placed after the downhill at just 1.18sec.
But Aerni, who has not even made a podium in four seasons on the World Cup circuit, benefited from being first out of the gate for a simply set slalom course with the snow melting under bright sun on the Survretta slope.
Murisier eventually finished sixth, one place ahead of Janka as the Swiss quartet packed into the top seven in another impressive day of skiing for the host nation.
Hirscher, seeking a sixth consecutive World Cup overall title, finished the opening downhill 2.30sec behind teammate Romed Baumann’s winning time of 1min 39.25sec, but importantly 0.84sec off France’s Alexis Pinturault, the man seen as most likely to snatch his world crown.
“Pintu”, the winner of four World Cup combined crystal globes, had 1.46sec to make up on Baumann, but botched his slalom and eventually ended up 10th, 0.86sec off the pace to leave France still without a medal in St Moritz.
Aerni’s gold, however, was Switzerland’s third of the world champs after Wendy Holdener (women’s combined) and Beat Feuz (men’s downhill).
He becomes the sixth Swiss winner of the combined after Daniel Albrecht (2007), Pirmin Zurbriggen (1985), Rudolf Rominger (1936), David Zogg (1934) and Otto Furrer (1932).
Flu-hit super-G silver medallist Kjetil Jansrud, flying the flag for Norway in the absence through injury of Aksel Lund Svindal — a two-time world combined winner in 2009 and 2011 — finished sixth in the downhill but failed to start the slalom.
Jansrud’s teammate Aleksander Aamodt Kilde finished joint fourth with Italian Dominik Paris, 0.34sec off a podium place.
