Merryweather Career-Best Alpine Combined in Eighth

Alice Merryweather earned a career-best eighth-place result in Sunday's alpine combined at Crans-Montana, Switzerland to lead the Land Rover U.S. Alpine Ski Team. 

Italy's Federica Brignone pulled off the victory with some gutsy skiing, while the rest of the podium was a bit of a surprise as Austria's Franziska Gritsch was second, and the Czech Republic's Ester Ledecka rounded out the podium in third. With her win, Federica became the first woman to win four alpine combined races in a single ski resort, and she became the FIS Ski World Cup overall leader. 

With warmer temperatures and a surface that did not freeze on Saturday evening, the track held up surprisingly well for the super-G portion of the alpine combined. Starting bib 5, Italy's Federica Brignone capitalized on the early bib number and absolutely skied with fire and passion. She put it all on the line, and won the super-G portion of the combined by .58 seconds over Slovakian Petra Vlhova. Alice Merryweather skied a clean and solid super-G run, ending up sixth—just 1.03 seconds off of Federica's pace. 

As the temperatures increased, athletes had to fight to the finish in the slalom portion of the alpine combined. It would be a Federica-Petra battle, and Federica skied a solid slalom run, crossing the line with a final time of 1:56.24. All eyes on current slalom leader Petra, who was skiing OK but definitely not on her A-game, and straddled a gate, skiing out and DNFing—thus handing the victory and the overall lead to Federica. 

In an interview on Saturday when asked about being the new favorite for the overall as Mikaela was not competing, Federica answered passionately, "I want Mikaela back, I really do hope that she will return soon...for herself so she can do again what she loves most. I know that what I am going to say will seem harsh but one has to move on...it's not like it was about a few races that didn't go well and you can slowly forget about it. What she went through is something she will never forget and it won't ever go away. I do know that she will need time, but I really hope that she will come back soon and go back to what she likes the most (skiing), and that it will help her overcome those terrible moments she just went through."

The journalist was somewhat taken aback with Federica's answer, thinking that Federica would respond by saying that she's excited for the potential to lead the in the overall standings. But, Federica respects Mikaela, loves the competition, and knows it's good for the sport.  

Alice's sixth place super-G run set her up for a career-best alpine combined result on Sunday, but more importantly, it gave her added confidence heading into next weekend's speed series in La Thuile, Italy, as she hopes to make it into the top-25 in the world in super-G and thus qualify for World Cup Finals in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy. 

"It's definitely a confidence-boost going into La Thuile, but I'm definitely not taking anything for granted," noted Alice. "I'm not comfortable in 24th by any means, so I justt have to put Finals out of my mind and think about it as just another race, just another day of super-G. But, it definitely helps to have a good super-G under my belt from this morning."

With back-to-back career-best super-G results at Sochi, Russia and Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, Alice will head into La Thuile with even more confidence. "I think that I have gotten a lot better technically, at least in the prep period I got a lot more solid in my technical skiing, and I think that I'm finally trusting that in super-G races" she added. "I'm struggling a bit more in downhill now, but I'm able to trust myself a little more in super-G than I have in years past." 

With her win on Sunday, Federica Brignone becomes the overall leader with 1,298 points—73 points ahead of Mikaela Shiffrin, and 159 points ahead of Petra. At this point, the current overall leader Mikaela's return to Europe and return to competition is unknown. 

Up next is a super-G and an alpine combined in La Thuile, Italy. 

RESULTS
Alpine Combined

STANDINGS
Overall
Alpine Combined

HOW TO WATCH 
All times EST

Monday, Feb. 24
1:00 a.m. - Women’s combined, Crans-Montana, SUI - NBCSN*

*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.