Swiss break up gold-medal ski combination from world championships as team event makes Olympic debut

BORMIO, Italy — The Swiss are breaking up their gold-medal ski combination from worlds as the team event makes its Olympic debut on Monday at the Milan Cortina Games.

Four-time overall World Cup champion Marco Odermatt will unite with technical specialist Loic Meillard in an event where one racer competes in a downhill run and another in a slalom. Their two times are added up to determine the final results. It's one of several new events at these Olympics.

At the world championships last February, Franjo von Allmen, the Olympic downhill winner on Saturday, was paired with Meillard to take first place as part of a Swiss podium sweep. This time, von Allmen will be with Tanguy Nef. The other teams representing Switzerland feature Alexis Monney with Daniel Yule, and Stefan Rogentin with Matthias Iten.

Odermatt skipped the team combined at worlds. He's in search of his first medal at the Milan Cortina Games after taking fourth in the downhill. He won gold in the giant slalom at the 2022 Beijing Games.

Italy has a strong contingent, too. Giovanni Franzoni, the silver medalist in the downhill, will join with Alex Vinatzer, while bronze medalist Dominik Paris is with Tommaso Sala.

The Americans have one team: Kyle Negomir and River Radamus.

The women will compete in the team event Tuesday. It's almost certain that downhill winner Breezy Johnson will be paired with Mikaela Shiffrin. The duo won the event at the world championship. They finished ahead of the Swiss combination of Wendy Holdener and Lara Gut-Behrami, who's out with a knee injury.