Canadian James Crawford won the bronze medal in the alpine combined event at the Beijing Olympics on Thursday.
Crawford entered the slalom stage second in the overall standings, behind Norway’s Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, after clocking a time of one minute 43.14 seconds on the downhill.
Crawford then clocked the seventh time in the slalom, clocking 48.97 seconds for a cumulative time of 2:32.11, giving Canada its first medal in the alpine combined.
Above all, it is a first medal for Crawford at the senior level on the international scene.
The 24-year-old Torontonian had never before reached the podium in the World Cup, but he had come close to collecting this first medal during his first two outings in Beijing.
On Tuesday, he finished sixth in the super-G, the day after his fourth place in the downhill when he finished the race seven hundredths of a second behind the bronze medalist.
“I had been hoping for a World Cup podium for a long time. I continually had the feeling that I was getting closer to it and that I could get there, and that if I kept doing what I was doing, it was going to happen. Today, it finally happened. »
Austrian Johannes Strolz won the event with a time of 2:31.43, ahead of Kilde (2:32.02).
Three other Canadians participated in the event. Broderick Thompson of British Columbia was consistent placing eighth in the downhill and also in the slalom. In the cumulative standings, he finished in eighth place.
The Canadian, Brodie Seger was unable to continue on his good run during the slalom. He completed the descent in third place, but due to the 10th time in slalom, he finished the event in ninth place.
The other Canadian in the running, Trevor Philp did not complete the slalom event and was disqualified.