He’s unhappy with format, but Ivica Kostelic of Croatia still a favorite in super-combined

Croatia’s Kostelic favored in super-combined

WHISTLER, British Columbia — Ivica Kostelic is not someone who keeps his feelings to himself, and it was less than a month ago when he lashed out at skiing’s new combined format.

For the first time at the Olympics, the combined will be run with one shortened downhill run and one slalom leg Tuesday. Through the last Olympics, the race always added the times together from one downhill run and two slalom legs.

“This is like spitting in the face of the slalom skier,” Croatia’s Kostelic said after winning a slalom in Wengen, Switzerland, last month.

Indeed, the super-combined — as it is now known — no longer favors the slalom skiers.

That’s why the defending champion, Ted Ligety of the United States, doesn’t even consider himself a favorite this time.

“I feel like I have a good chance, but I don’t feel like I’m anywhere close to the favorite,” Ligety said after a downhill training run last week. “Someone like Ivica who’s been winning slaloms and also gets top-20s in downhills is a lot more of a favorite than I am.”

Kostelic placed a respectable 18th Monday in the downhill, which Ligety did not race, and despite his complaint he’s a favorite.

All three podium finishers from Monday’s downhill are also threats — Switzerland’s Didier Defago, Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway and Bode Miller of the United States.

Defago finished fourth in the super-combi at the 2007 world championships in Are, Sweden; Svindal won the event at last year’s worlds in Val d’Isere, France; and Miller is always a threat in any sort of a combined race.

Miller took the silver medal in the traditional combined at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games and won the event at the 2003 worlds in St. Moritz, Switzerland. His only victory this season came in the super-combi in Wengen last month.

“Not to be arrogant but the super-combined is a pretty easy event for me,” Miller said a few days ago. “If I ski anywhere near my potential in either of those events it’s rare that I would be off the podium.”

Miller is also a fan of the traditional combined format.

“I like the combined better where it’s the old-school combined where the downhill is from the top and then there’s two runs of slalom and it’s a separate race,” Miller said.

“It’s been a goal of mine since I was a little kid to win a combined where I won the downhill and I won the slalom. I just think that is the overall measure of an overall skier.”

Former overall World Cup winner Benjamin Raich of Austria is another threat, as are two more Swiss skiers — Carlo Janka and Silvan Zurbriggen — and another Croatian, Natko Zrncic-Dim.

Julien Lizeroux of France took silver behind Svindal at last year’s worlds and Zrncic-Dim claimed bronze after Miller threw away an almost certain medal by skiing out in the slalom leg.