Toronto’s Jack Crawford wins Canada’s first ever medal in Alpine Combined

TORONTO, ON, Feb. 10, 2022 – Toronto’s Jack Crawford just won Canada’s first ever Olympic medal in the alpine combined, taking bronze at Beijing Winter Olympics 2022.

The Alpine Combined can be considered a good gauge for best all round ski racer, as it combines both the speed of the downhill with the highly technical abilities required for slalom.

Crawford, 24, who had finished fourth in the Downhill by merely seven-hundredths of a second and sixth in the Super G earlier in the week, started things off last night with an impressive second place finish in the downhill finishing just 0.02 of a second back of Norway’s Aleksander Aamodt Kilde.

Raised in Toronto near Eglinton and Mount Pleasant, and ski racing out of Georgian Peaks before continuing his career at Whistler, Crawford is known to be a stronger speed skier than technical skier.

In the slalom run that followed, Crawford didn’t have the cleanest run, finishing seventh but it was enough to keep him on the podium, with a total time for the two runs of 2:32.11. Johannes Strolz of Austria came back from fourth after the downhill to win gold in 2:31.43. Kilde was 0.59 of a second back for the silver.

This is Crawford’s best international finish in the event as he finished fourth in the alpine combined at the 2021 World Championships.

It is just the fourth Olympic medal won by a Canadian in a men’s alpine skiing event. Steve Podborski won downhill bronze at Lake Placid 1980, Edi Podivinsky won his own downhill bronze at Lillehammer 1994 and Jan Hudec captured a super-G bronze at Sochi 2014.

Canada’s previous best ever in a men’s Olympic combined event was eighth place by Jean-Philippe Roy at Salt Lake City 2002. Karen Percy had placed fourth in the women’s combined at Calgary 1988.

by Terry Lankstead

with notes from Olympic.ca

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