Bennett Leads Three U.S. Men into the Points in Wengen Combined
Races got underway on the famed Lauberhorn downhill track in Wengen, Switzerland, with an alpine combined—one run of downhill followed by one run of slalom. Bryce Bennett led three of his Land Rover U.S. Alpine Ski Team teammates into the points in 14th place with Ryan Cochran-Siegle finishing 19th and Jared Goldberg 24th.
Austrian speed skier Matthias Mayer won the FIS Ski World Cup-winning the downhill and taking an impressive fourth place in the slalom. Pre-race favorite Alexis Pinturault of France was second—while he won the slalom by almost a second, his downhill run wasn’t quite fast enough to take the top step on the podium. Frenchman Victor Muffat-Jeandet, a tech specialist, was third.
It was a fast downhill under sunny Swiss skies with the downhillers flying off of the jumps on the longest and fastest track on the World Cup circuit. Bryce, Ryan, and Jared stacked it in, finishing 15th, 16th and 18th in the downhill portion before heading to the slalom. With a recent change in the combined rules, the racers started the slalom in order based on the downhill results instead of doing a flip-30, allowing for downhillers to get a better advantage in the usually heavy tech skier-favored combined event. Bryce had the best slalom finish of the Americans, taking 15th, while Ryan was 19th and Jared 29th. Sam Morse also competed, finishing 38th in the downhill and 34th in the slalom to take 34th overall.
With Pinturault’s second-place finish, he retook the overall World Cup lead from Henrik Kristoffersen of Norway, who did not race the combined.
The U.S. men now set their sights on the downhill, which kicks off on Saturday. They all have good confidence going in after putting down some strong results in downhill training this week.
“I love Wengen—it’s such a cool experience,” said Bryce. “The snow this year is perfect—all the way down, top to bottom. I just love this downhill because you need all the pieces in your skiing to be competitive here. Anything you think of is in the downhill.”
RESULTS
Men’s Alpine Combined
STANDINGS
Overall
Alpine Combined
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HOW TO WATCH
All Times EST
Saturday, Jan. 18
6:25 a.m. - Men’s downhill, Wengen, SUI - Olympic Channel, Olympic Channel.com
8:00 p.m. - Men’s downhill, Wengen, SUI - NBCSN*
Sunday, Jan. 19
4:15 a.m. - Men’s slalom run 1, Wengen, SUI - Olympic Channel.com, NBC Sports Gold
7:00 a.m. - Men’s slalom run 2, Wengen, SUI - Olympic Channel, Olympic Channel.com, NBC Sports Gold
5:00 p.m. - Men’s downhill, Wengen, SUI - NBC**
9:00 p.m. - Men’s slalom, Wengen, SUI - NBCSN*
*Same-day broadcast
**Next-day broadcast
Note: All televised events to stream across NBCSports.com, NBC Sports app, OlympicChannel.com, and Olympic Channel: Home of Team USA app.
Exclusive commercial-free coverage will be available for subscribers of the NBC Sports Gold Pass, available here: https://www.nbcsports.com/gold/snow.
