Olympic Alpine Skiing

We've seen some phenomenal performances already from alpine skiers at the 2014 Olympic Games, and the men's giant slalom event should offer more of the same. There is a highly competitive group at the top, and it will take perfection—or something close to it—to win the gold.

The athletes in this event are scheduled to hit the slopes at the Rosa Khutor Alpine Center on Wednesday, with the first run slated to begin at 2 a.m. ET and the final set for 5:30 a.m. ET.

To this point in the Games, Austria has been the undisputed champ of alpine skiing at Sochi, having collected five total medals—two golds, two silvers and one bronze. Switzerland and Slovenia also both have two gold medals, while Germany and Norway round out the top five with one gold apiece. 

Here's a look at where the top nations stand in the overall medal count, followed by viewing information for the upcoming men's giant slalom competition. Afterward, continue reading to find out which men have the best chance to win gold. 

When: Wednesday, Feb. 19, starting at 2 a.m ET

Where: Rosa Khutor Alpine Center, Krasnodar Krai, Russia

Watch: NBC, beginning at 8 p.m. ET

Live Stream: NBC Olympics Live Extra

Favorites to Win Gold

Ted Ligety, USA

America has yet to win a gold medal in any alpine skiing event in Sochi, but that could well change on Wednesday when Ted Ligety takes on the men's giant slalom course.

Joe Battaglia of NBCOlympics.com notes Ligety is being picked by many to win this event. He also points out a big reason why, while adding some historical perspective: 

From a pure skiing standpoint, there is no one in the world that skis the turns with more precision than Ligety. He didn’t earn the nickname Shred for no reason...A victory in Sochi would make Ligety the first American gold medalist in the event. 

Ligety is the current repeat World Cup champion in the giant slalom, and he's won 20 World Cup races in this discipline. His ability to stay technically sound while attacking dangerous courses with enthusiastic aggression, has helped him carve out a niche as one of the world's premier giant-slalom racers.

Marcel Hirscher, Austria

If Ligety can't get the job done, then Austria could well win another gold medal in alpine skiing with Marcel Hirscher.

The Austrian star was expected to medal four years ago but failed to do so, finishing in fourth place in the giant slalom and fifth place in the slalom race. He's not dwelling on past failures, however, choosing instead to focus on what's in front of him. 

"A ski racer is like a child—you may fall down sometimes but you always have to get up again," he said, as relayed by the Associated Press, via NBCOlympics.com. 

With two World Cup victories already under his belt this season, along with four other podium finishes, Hirscher has been Ligety's top competition of late.

Alexis Pinturault, France

Young Alexis Pinturault (22) is a rising star within the alpine skiing community. He's finished on the podium nine times and has one gold medal in the giant slalom since joining the World Cup in 2011. 

Pinturault also comes into Sochi with some positive momentum, having won the super-combined event in Austria at the end of January. 

"It's a great result," Pinturault said after his win, as noted by the Associated Press, via SI.com. "My confidence is building and my skiing gets better and better. That's very positive for the Olympics."

He'll have to rebound from a couple of disappointing finishes in his first two Olympic events, however, after finishing in 23rd place in the downhill and crashing out in the slalom. Still, if he can put together a clean run, then the technically sound youngster has as good of a chance as any racer to win the gold. 

Follow me on Twitter @JesseReed78 

Alpine skiing has been a hot topic of discussion at the 2014 Winter Olympics, as skiers have been having trouble staying on course. Warm conditions have been a constant headache for athletes and organizers in Sochi, where temperatures have risen past 60 degrees Fahrenheit at different times during the Winter Games.

Things hit rock bottom during the women's super-G competition on Saturday. Charles Robinson of Yahoo! Sports detailed the wild situation during the event, when seven of the first eight skiers veered off course.

As one skier after another spun off the course, others later in the order huddled around a monitor in the starting area, trying to understand where the mistakes were being made. Others who had failed to finish began sending information back up the mountain to teammates, laying out all the trouble areas. That helped the field catch up as the event carried on. Eighteen of 49 skiers ultimately didn't finish their runs, while one more didn't start the race.

It will be interesting to see how the women react going into Tuesday's two-run giant slalom event, which has been moved up earlier in the morning in an effort to ski on better snow. While the event won't be broadcast live on American TV, you can still watch live online with NBC Live Extra.

Dense fog has also been an issue in Sochi recently, and as Graham Dunbar of The Associated Press cautioned, there are 90 women taking part in this event, so the second run might be pushed back to Wednesday if the conditions aren't up to par.

Here's a look at the updated schedule and TV information for now, followed by predictions for the three medalists in this wide-open race. For more information, visit Sochi2014.com.

Women's Alpine Skiing Giant Slalom

Date: Tuesday, Feb. 19

Run 1 Time: 12:30 a.m. ET

Run 2 Time: 4 a.m. ET

Live Stream: NBC Live Extra

Live TV?: No

TV Coverage: NBC Primetime (8 p.m. / 7 p.m. CT)

Medal Predictions

Gold: Maria Hoefl-Riesch, Germany

Silver: Jessica Lindelll-Vikarby, Sweden

Bronze: Anna Fenninger, Austria

Through 10 days of Winter Games action, Germany has emerged as the leader in the gold-medal count with eight first-place finishes. Looking at her recent string of success, veteran Maria Hoefl-Riesch looks like a prime candidate to bring home another gold for her country in the giant slalom event.

Hoefl-Riesch, 29, is vying to earn her fifth career Olympic medal. She won the gold in the super combined and silver in the super-G event already in Sochi after winning both events at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

It seems like she's peaking at the right time just as she did four years ago, and I envision Hoefl-Riesch standing atop the podium by the end of the competition.

Meanwhile, Jessica Lindell-Vikarby is currently ranked the world's top skier in the World Cup giant slalom rankings, ahead of fellow Swede Maria Pietilae-Holmner. Even though they might be atop the leaderboard, the two women haven't exactly generated a lot of fanfare going into this event, per Dunbar's report.

"Nope," Pietilae-Holmner said. "No one is used to having two Swedish girls up there. So maybe that's why. But it's really cool to have Nos. 1 and 2 in the same team."

Following her gold medal-winning performance in the women's super G earlier in Sochi, Austia's Anna Fenninger made some interesting comments to Martyn Herman of Reuters. 

"In GS, I have no realistic medal chances. It's not my major motivation," she said. "In super-combined my slalom was quite good. We'll have to see about the slalom specialists - they've had their home comforts and better preparation."

Still, I see her riding that momentum and bringing home some more hardware by the end of the giant slalom.

It's all about technique in this race, with speed serving as a secondary aspect. With such slushy courses so far during the Olympics, the women will need to be at the top of their games.

Results in the first week of the Alpine skiing programme at Sochi 2014 were never likely to go exactly according to form from the season thus far.

Look back at any Winter Olympics and you will find unexpected names among the medals, joining the usual few pre-race favourites fulfilling expectations.

No matter how surprised you have or have not been, this much is certain—the downhill, super combined and super-G for both the men and women have provided an entertaining and fascinating watch.

The men's downhill on the opening weekend set in motion some notable themes that would partly define the action in the speed and combined events.

Matthias Mayer's narrow—but well-deserved—victory set the tone for an Austrian ski team hell-bent on improving on a gold-less, minimal medal haul from Vancouver 2010. Heading into the technical disciplines this week, they top the Alpine skiing medal table.

Nicole Hosp's steady form from the World Cup held firm, and then some, under the weight of Olympic pressure. The 30-year-old added a second silver to her collection (following on from one in the slalom in 2006) in the super combined before staying upright in the super-G to take the bronze.

Austria's pursuit of gold came to fruition on the women's side in that race with Anna Fenninger joining Hosp among those who shined on the difficult course set by their compatriot, coach Florian Winkler.

It was a commendable effort to finish on a day when just three of the first 11 starters managed to do so, with especially slippery conditions after the main jump catching several out. Fenninger's run was well judged and one she was understandably delighted with:

The second significant theme to emerge from that first downhill was the struggle of the big names and in-form men to deliver the success they, and many others, have envisioned for them. That is not a slight on their efforts, just a matter of fact.

Bode Miller's bronze on the super-G went some way to compensating for his disappointment at missing out in the downhill in particular. After excelling in the training runs, the American was caught out by the repercussions of overcast conditions following days of sunshine, something he admitted to the FIS governing body website:

I wanted to ski it as hard as I could and not really back off, but it required a lot of tactics today which I didn't apply. I skied hard and well, and that's the most important thing. It just didn't go all right.

Miller's compatriot, reigning super-G and combined World Champion Ted Ligety failed to make the top-10 in either event, whilst others like Canada's Erik Guay and Switzerland's Patrick Kueng—both winners of races earlier this season—failed to trouble the top men either.

The most disappointed will be Aksel Lund Svindal. Leader of the downhill and super-G World Cup standings heading into Sochi, his narrow miss in the former has proved a particularly bitter blow for the Norwegian whose Games are now over. He confirmed his departure on Twitter:

The flip-side to all of this is, of course, the fact that others have enjoyed career-defining moments in Russia.

Svindal alluded to his teammate Kjetil Jansrud, a more-than-solid performer, but one who has not reached the heights the former has. His downhill bronze would have been a decent enough return for the 28-year-old, but he added a superb run in the super-G to take gold.

Sandro Viletta has hitherto been a relative non-presence on the scene, save for one win in Beaver Creek back in 2011. His super combined success has changed all that for the Swiss.

Having lived in the shadow of the stars of the U.S. Ski team these past few years, Andrew Weibrecht added to his Vancouver bronze in the super-G with a silver in the event that will be a nice reminder of that wonderful feeling of metallic weight around his neck. The 28-year-old will surely now fancy his chances of upgrading one more to gold in Pyeongchang in four years.

The other men's medalists Christof Innerhofer (Italy) and Ivica Kostelic (Croatia) are more used to views from the podium but will nonetheless be reveling in hard-earned glory (even if Innerhofer was so close to finishing first in the downhill).

Things have largely gone to form for the women with the mix of winners in keeping with a season in which several have enjoyed top spots on both sides of the Atlantic.

The versatile and uber-consistent Maria Hoefl-Riesch has taken that reliability into multiple Olympics now. After successfully defending her super combined title, she now has four medals to her name, including three golds. Her Games are far from over, and the German holds high hopes of more success before turning her attentions back to a potentially career-best World Cup year.

Julia Mancuso's reliability is of the less consistent variety. Yet again, the American has proved herself a skier for the biggest stages.

After an at times challenging year, Mancuso's bronze in the super combined has vindicated her decision to go away and refocus at the beginning of 2014. Having won the giant slalom at Turin back in 2006, only a fool would completely discount her having further say before this week has concluded.

Like the earlier mentioned Fenninger and Hosp, Switzerland's Lara Gut has been one of the best performers on the World Cup circuit. Her downhill bronze is not a bad addition to a burgeoning resume that is sure to expand with further prominent results in the years to come.

The undoubted major event for the women thus far has been the extraordinary happening that occurred in that downhill—the awarding of the first double Olympic gold medals in Alpine skiing history.

Tina Maze's first place reflected a fine beginning to 2014 from the Slovenian. After a slow start to the campaign, her downhill win in Cortina d'Ampezzo in late January suggested she was peaking at the right time and so it has proved.

She was joined on the top spot by Swiss racer Dominique Gisin, whose time of 1:41.57 Maze had equaled. Her best result in well over two years, she reflected happily but truthfully on her achievement, telling the FIS website:

I don't think I even dreamt about this. Now that I have won, I am living the dream, but this is better than dreaming. For the last two years I didn't manage to get out of my comfort zone but to start here I had no choice but to leave that zone.

The giant slalom and slalom remain for the world's best skiers to make any (or further) impact at these Winter Olympics. With the likes of Marcel Hirscher and Mikaela Shiffrin joining proceedings now in Rosa Khutor (weather permitting after Tuesday's fog), plenty of engaging racing is surely ahead.

Updates from Monday, Feb. 17

Bode Miller responded to fan reaction over the NBC interview early Monday in a series of tweets:

Original Text

Bode Miller won the bronze medal in the men’s super-G competition at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, but his accomplishments weren’t all that had television viewers buzzing during NBC’s prime-time coverage (read: replay) of the race. 

Mike Dyce of Fansided.com reported on the postgame interview between Miller and Christin Cooper:

Well, NBC isn’t winning anyone over after what reporter Christin Cooper did. Cooper was interviewing United States Olympic skier Bode Miller and asked him repeatedly about his dead brother till he cried.

The internet and Twitter were rightfully upset about it. Especially the decision to leave it in after all the tape delay.

The transcript of the entire interview can be found in this Chris Chase report via USA Today's For The Win.

The part of the exchange that jumped out immediately was as follows:

Cooper: Bode, you’re showing so much emotion down here. What’s going through your mind?

Miller: (Long pause) A lot, obviously. A long struggle coming in here. And, uh, just a tough year.

Cooper: I know you wanted to be here with Chilly [Miller's brother] experiencing these games, how much does it mean to you to come up with a great performance for him? And was it for him?

Miller: I mean, I don’t know [if] it’s really for him. But I wanted to come here and uh — I don’t know, I guess make my self [sic] proud. (Pauses, then wipes away tears.)

Cooper: When you’re looking up in the sky at the start, we see you there and it just looks like you’re talking to somebody. What’s going on there?

Perhaps the most notable thing about the post-race interview is the fact that Cooper was a former Olympic racer herself, as Ed Werder of ESPN pointed out:

Brian Christopherson of the Lincoln Journal Star compared the interview to past Roy Firestone tactics:

While Cooper may have pressed a bit too much during the interview, it was still NBC’s decision to leave the tears in the prime-time coverage slot. This certainly wasn’t a live and organic interview that caught the producers off guard as it unfolded.

Freelance writer Ty Unglebower and former NFL player Jason Buck pointed that reality out on Twitter:

The interview even had Jerry Young, who is a play-by-play announcer of high school sports for the NFHS Network, upset:

There is another way to interpret the interview's actions, though, as Ian Rapoport of NFL.com addressed:

Despite the wide range of opinions on the interview, Miller's emotions and thoughts are what matter most:

Considering the fallout and criticism that NBC will likely receive from the interview, don’t be surprised if the network issues some type of comment on it in future telecasts.

It will be interesting to watch how this impacts Miller going forward, if at all. He still has to compete in the men's giant slalom and men's slalom in the coming days in Sochi.

Facing sky-high expectations to conquer the Sochi slopes like they did in Vancouver, the U.S. Alpine skiing team has hit a rough patch during the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Four years ago, the U.S. earned a record eight medals, claiming gold on the strength of Bode Miller and Lindsey Vonn. This time around, the Americans have slumped out of the gate, notching one bronze through the first five medal events.

That changed on Sunday morning, when Miller and Andrew Weibrecht found the podium in the men's super-G. Weibrecht beat out his teammate for silver while Miller settled for the bronze, reversing their finishes from the 2010 result.

This is Miller's sixth Olympic medal, but the 36-year-old did not undersell the significance of upping his Olympic tally.

"If it's not the most important race of my life, it's right there with it," Miller told USA Today Sports' David Leon Moore. "I had a lot to show today."

Boasting two top finishers in the super-G could be just what the U.S. team needed to get back on track during the latter portion of the Sochi Games. With four events remaining, there's still plenty of time to salvage a disappointing start.

Date	Event	Time (ET)	TV (tape delay)
Feb. 18	Ladies' Giant Slalom	2 a.m.	NBC
Feb. 19	Men's Giant Slalom	2 a.m.	NBC
Feb. 21	Ladies' Slalom	7:45 a.m.	NBC
Feb. 22	Men's Slalom	7:45 a.m.	NBC

Men's Outlook

In order for the U.S. men to maintain their momentum through the final two events, Ted Ligety must dust off a slow start.

Miller does not excel in the slalom or giant slalom, so the speedster is not a strong contender to add another medal to his indelible legacy. Weibrecht has now shined in the super-G during the past two Winter Games, but he has not performed as well elsewhere.

Big things were expected from Ligety coming into the 2014 Winter Olympics, but the 29-year-old has not delivered. Not only has he failed to medal, but he has not yet secured a top-10 finish in any event.

The super combined champion in the 2006 Turin Games entered the event's 2014 iteration as a favorite, but he fell flat with a 12th place finish. He bluntly expressed his frustration in a post-event interview on NBC (via Yahoo! Sports' Graham Watson):

Yeah, really it’s a choke to put it simply. I saw the guys going out, and I could have easily skied a lot better and a lot harder. It was actually an easy course set, easy snow to push on, and I just skied way too conservatively. It’s a lesson learned and move on. It’s definitely a bummer, but that’s ski racing sometimes.

After placing 14th in the super-G, his frustrations could be mounting in Sochi, but a strong showing in the giant slalom would redeem his Olympic performance.

Time would readily forget his early struggles if he dug down and erased his past missteps with one huge effort in his strongest event. Despite his difficulties in Sochi, Ligety remains the U.S. men's best hope of snatching another medal.

Women's Outlook

Vonn's absence put a dent in the U.S. women's quest to match their four medals from 2010. Vancouver's breakout performer won the team's lone gold medal as well as a bronze, but another two-time medal winner from 2010 is still on the prowl in Sochi.

Julia Mancuso put herself in a strong position to win the super combined; she started off the two-pronged event with a leading time of 1:42.68 during the downhill portion. Despite entering the slalom event with a near one-second edge, she finished with bronze.

Bronze isn't gold, but the U.S. Olympic team's official Twitter page noted that she became the first U.S. skier to medal in three different events, a feat Miller also later accomplished with his super-G medal.

While the giant slalom is not her specialty, she surprisingly won the gold in 2006. Without many other viable contenders, the U.S. team would love to see her combat that competition again.

Mancuso, 29, admitted to CBS News' Stephen Smith that she does not know if she'll compete again in four years. Yet she still maintains a jovial outlook on the Olympics, which seems to work well for her on the grand spotlight.

"I'm definitely surprised that I'm sitting here now … and I'm doing the same thing I did as a kid—dreaming about the Olympics, she said. "I didn’t know I'd be doing it for so long and I still feel like a kid."

Winning her fifth medal would be a great way to go out.

Medal Count

The Sochi Games had not been kind to the U.S. men's Alpine skiing team, but a couple of Vancouver medalists came to the rescue Sunday in the super-G.

One of them, bronze medalist Bode Miller, you're likely familiar with. This was Miller's sixth Olympic medal, further increasing his lead as the most decorated American Alpine skier on the Olympic stage.

The other, silver medalist Andrew Weibrecht, you might have forgotten about. If so, that's OK. The 28-year-old hasn't done much worth remembering since becoming a surprise bronze medalist in the super-G in Vancouver.

Together, the pair of opposites brought some shine back to an Alpine team that had been struggling in Sochi and, most importantly, capped off equally harrowing journeys from podium to podium.

Weibrecht is, without a doubt, the unlikeliest of medalists. Few expected him to be in Sochi at all. Nobody expected him to win a silver.

While all of the U.S. attention was on Miller and Ted Ligety—who was a medal favorite in the super-G but finished a disappointing 14th—Weibrecht was so under the radar he was practically invisible.

It wasn't quite the media's fault that he wasn't getting any attention either. As Nick Zaccardi of NBC's OlympicTalk pointed out, his resume is fairly light:

The past few years have been particularly rough for Weibrecht, who stands at only 5'6" and is known for his ferocious but never consistent skiing.

The New York native, who has the nickname "Warhorse," has had an unthinkable four surgeries since 2010. At one point his results were so poor that he lost some of his funding from the U.S. team.

Many would have given up after all of that, content with a bronze from 2010. Not Weibrecht.

He wrote grants to get extra funding, rehabbed endlessly and rounded back into form just in time to make the Sochi team. That accomplishment alone meant everything.

After being named to the U.S. Alpine team, he expressed his gratitude on his Facebook page: "So it's been about four years since my last 'great race' and I've been through a lot since then so this means a lot. better days to come."

That better day happened to be Sunday.

Coming from the unenviable 29th position, Weibrecht skied a fast, aggressive and virtually flawless line down the course to take the silver medal, just three-tenths of a second behind Kjetil Jansrud of Norway, who won gold.

"It's been a rough couple of years," Weibrecht told the press after his race, via USA Today's David Leon Moore. "This makes up for it."

Sharing the podium with Weibrecht was another aggressive skier, the legendary Miller. Miller began these Games with high hopes to add to his medal count in his fifth Olympics, but after disappointing finishes in the downhill and super combined, things weren't looking promising.

But unlike at times in the past, Miller didn't let his frustrations get the best of him. He skied an imperfect but assertive race and ended up tied for the bronze with Jan Hudec of Canada.

After the race, the normally nonchalant Miller was in tears. This bronze was significant.

Unlike Weibrecht, 36-year-old Miller has 33 World Cup victories and is the face of U.S. Alpine skiing. With the spotlight always on him, both his successes and failures on and off the slopes generate headlines.

But like Weibrecht, the last four years have been a brutal journey for Miller, and it was clear that this medal perhaps meant more to him than the rest.

He reflected on this medal's importance to the press after the race, per Moore: 

If it's not the most important race of my life, it's right there with it. I had a lot to show today. I always feel like I'm capable of winning medals. But as you've seen in these Olympics, it's not that easy. On a given day, there are so many guys.

To be on the podium, this is a really big day for me. Emotionally, I had a lot riding on it. Even though I didn't ski my best — a lot of mistakes — I'm just super, super happy.

Miller has good reason to be happy after all he's been through. Since Vancouver, his personal life has been in the headlines with a very public custody battle with an ex-girlfriend and the devastating news of his wife Morgan Beck Miller's miscarriage.

He also had an intensive knee surgery in 2012 that took him off the slopes for a year, and many believed it would end his career.

But as his tears poured out at the bottom of the super-G course Sunday, his thoughts were with his brother, Chelone, who passed away last year. Chelone, 29, was a professional snowboarder who was aiming to make the Sochi team as well.

That's the thing about the Olympics—it's always about so much more than just the race.

With Weibrecht and Miller's emotional triumphs, Sochi headlines that had been focused on the failures of the men's U.S. Alpine skiers can finally be put to rest.

Miller will be back on the slopes in Sochi later in the week to compete in the slalom and giant slalom, but given that he is more a speed specialist than a technician, it would be a surprise if he medaled in either of those.

Ligety will be favored in the giant slalom, where he will be trying to turn around his Olympic Games, hopefully spurred on by his teammates' success.

Weibrecht, with his silver in hand, is likely done competing in Sochi, but he can surely leave the Games with his head held high.

Both Miller and Weibrecht are different men than they were the last time they shared the podium together in Vancouver. They've skied through a lot and lived through more, but their trials and tribulations make their medals that much more meaningful.

Sunday was a great day for the U.S. Alpine team in Sochi, and it was a big victory for the perseverance of the human spirit.

Some of the biggest names in men's Alpine skiing will hit the slopes on Day 9 of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi for the super-G event.

The giant slalom and downhill events are essentially combined in the super-G event, and the men will look to conquer the course and earn their places on the podium. Of course, the field is about as unpredictable as it can get.

Early Alpine skiing events haven't been easily predicted. Multiple athletes have stepped up to win gold, though it appears safe to expect a few of the usual suspects to find themselves near the top of the standings.

Here are a few athletes you need to be looking out for in the men's super-G event, along with predictions for each of the three medals.

Event: Men's Super-G

Date: Sunday, Feb. 16

Live TV: None

TV Highlights: NBC Primetime (8 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. CT)

Live Stream: NBC Live Extra

Athletes to Watch

Matthias Mayer, Austria

Austrian skier Matthias Mayer might already have a slight upper hand in super-G. The 23-year-old took home his first Olympic gold medal in the downhill competition. And, somewhat surprisingly, downhill isn't even his best event.

Howard Fendrich of The Associated Press (via Yahoo! Sports) has an interesting fact regarding Mayer's experience in the downhill event:

And to think: In 65 previous World Cup or world championship races, the 23-year-old Mayer never had finished first. He'd never fared better than fifth in a downhill.

Mayer carved up the Rosa Khutor course with a time of 2:06.23 after not even being considered one of the major threats of the race. Well, the win has certainly put him on the map.

Super-G is his best event, and that makes him a serious contender for another gold medal.

Bode Miller, USA

Disappointment has been a trend for the United States in a select few sports, and men's Alpine skiing is one of them. Bode Miller was counted on to medal in the downhill event, but he finished in eighth place after dominating the training runs.

United States coach Sasha Rearick fully expects Miller to get back to top form in the super-G, via David Leon Moore of USA Today: "He got the nerves out of the way," Rearick said. "He's going to take his aggression to the next courses. That I'm confident of, very confident of."

While gold will be on Miller's mind, we should remember that he took home the silver medal in this same event back at the Vancouver Games in 2010. This is an entirely different course, but the fact remains that he has had success in this event.

Look for him to make his best efforts to silence his critics and bring a medal to the States.

Aksel Lund Svindal, Norway

The reigning gold medalist in this event, Norway's Aksel Lund Svindal, will be looking to maintain his title as the best super-G skier.

Svindal finished fourth in the downhill event last weekend. The disappointing finish there shouldn't carry over into super-G, as he frequently dominates this event on the World Cup circuit. He's won six of the past nine super-G events on the circuit.

The 31-year-old is masterful in speed events, and Rosa Khutor shouldn't prove to be too much of a challenge for one of the best athletes this event has ever seen. 

Predictions

This event really could end so many different ways. While there are obvious favorites, all three of the aforementioned athletes are perfectly capable of putting together a fast run and taking home the gold medal.

The disappointment surrounding Miller will be his downfall, in my opinion. After trying to do too much in the downhill event and underperforming in the super combined, Miller will likely press in this event. He was expected to bring home at least one medal, but that medal won't be a gold.

Mayer may have a surprise gold already in Sochi, but his relative inexperience on the slopes will hurt his chances. Yes, super-G is his best event. But Svindal pretty much owns the event, and that's why he has the upper hand.

Svindal should absolutely dominate the event. I wouldn't be surprised if he puts together a run up to three or four seconds fast than the next finisher. He'll be wearing a gold medal around his neck after the race.

Gold: Aksel Lund Svindal

Silver: Matthias Mayer

Bronze: Bode Miller

Follow me on Twitter: @kennydejohn

The United States had quite the dramatic and impressive day on the slopes of the Super-G course at the Rosa Khutor Alpine Center on Sunday. 

Bode Miller nervously held the lead in the competition after he turned in a time of 1:18.67, but he would be denied gold by Norway's Kjetil Jansrud, who crushed all of the competition with a gold-medal winning time of 1:18.14. Jansrud also won the bronze in the downhill event earlier in the Games. 

After ending up tied with Canada's Jan Hudec on time, Miller looked to have a silver, but his teammate, Andrew Weibrecht, surprised everyone with a silver-medal run of 1:18.44 that handed him his second-career medal.  Weibrecht previously won bronze in Vancouver in the same competition. 

As for Miller, he ended up deadlocked with Hudec in third place to win his sixth career Olympic medal, while Hudec won the first Canadian Alpine medal in 20 years. 

With his bronze, Miller became the oldest medalist in Alpine history at 36. 

The tie was the second in Sochi in an alpine skiing event as Tina Maze of Slovenia and Dominique Gisin of Switzerland tied for the gold medal in the women's downhill.

American medal favorite Ted Ligety did not have a strong day as he finished down in 14th place. 

Gold: Kjetil Jansrud (Norway): 1:18.14

Silver: Andrew Weibrecht (United States): 1:18.44

Bronze: Jan Hudec (Canada) and Bode Miller (United States): 1:18.67

Follow Joe on Twitter, @JTansey90. 

Anna Fenninger didn't win so much as she survived the slopes of the Rosa Khutor Alpine Center in Sochi, Russia, to earn gold in women's super-G at the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Her time of one minute, 25.52 seconds was enough to edge out Maria Hoefl-Riesch of Germany.

Here are the medal winners from Saturday. You can see a full list of the results on Sochi2014.com.

Medal	Skier	Country	Time
Gold	Anna Fenninger	Austria	1:25.52
Silver	Maria Hoefl-Riesch	Germany	1:26.07
Bronze	Nicole Hosp	Austria	1:26.18

That gold medal is the second for Austria so far in Sochi. With fellow Austrian Nicole Hosp taking bronze, the country now has five total medals, which is ninth in the standings as of the race's conclusion.

It should come as no surprise that an Austrian reigned supreme on the slope. As NBC's Joe Battaglia noted, the country had produced four of the eight gold-medal winners in super-G:

Fenninger is the third straight Austrian woman to win gold in super-G, per Infostrada Sports:

The 24-year-old talked to NBC Sports about the Austrian dominance of the event: "I don't know why we can win so much medals. I think we just like it. For me, the adrenaline is very high in super-G. That's what I like, when I go fast."

In the early part of the race, it seemed the three medal winners would be those who were simply able to finish. It wasn't until the 17th racer that there were more who finished than those who didn't, per Alan Abrahamson of 3 Wire Sports:

One turn in particular was giving the skiers a lot of trouble since it came immediately after the solitary jump. The margin for error was razor-thin, so if you took it wrong in the slightest, you were done. Countless racers skied right over the turn, while others had too much speed in order to make it and wound up wide of the flags.

A total of 18 out of a possible 49 skiers didn't finish the course. It's the most in the event's history, topping the 15 from the 2010 Olympics, per Yahoo Sports' Charles Robinson:

As the race went on, you could tell that the skiers were adapting and slowing down much more before reaching that jump. The trick was finding the right balance of risk and caution, as you didn't want to go so slowly so as to erase any hopes of earning a medal.

Fenninger struck that balance. She attacked the course but made sure not to get too out of control in the spots where she needed to be careful.

Although Fenninger didn't set an Olympic record, the fact that the Austrian won gold is perhaps a better indication of her talent. It took somebody with real skill to tame this slope.

Julia Mancuso was the highest-finishing American skier. Her time of 1:27.04 was only good enough for eighth, though.

It was a bit of a disappointment for Mancuso, after she had won bronze in the women's super combined earlier in the week and had a gold medal from 2006 in the giant slalom to her name.

Leanne Smith was the only other American to finish. For a little bit early on, she was in gold-medal position, if only because nobody else had completed the course. In the end, Smith settled for 18th with a time of 1:28.38.

Both Stacey Cook and Laurenne Ross picked up DNFs.

Between the crashes, missed turns and apprehensive skiers, the super-G competition was a bit underwhelming, but take nothing away from Fenninger. She outlasted the competition to come out on top.

Given her age and success on what had to be considered one of the tougher Olympic courses in recent memory, this could be the start of a run of dominance for Fenninger in a discipline her home nation has owned for over a decade now.