Svindal sets pace as Swiss, Miller lurk

Norway's Aksel Lund Svindal, the reigning world super-combined champion, led after the downhill portion of the Olympic event on Sunday.

Svindal, who this week won super-G gold and downhill silver, clocked 1min 53.15sec down the 3,105-metre-long Dave Murray course but there are a raft of slalom specialists who could threaten the Norwegian's podium charge.

Swiss pair Carlo Janka and Silvan Zurbriggen are perhaps the best placed at 0.50 and 0.73sec respectively for the slalom scheduled for 12.15pm in which the top 30 finishers race in descending order.

Newly-crowned downhill champion Didier Defago, also of Switzerland, placed fourth at 0.54sec.

US hopes of a remarkable eighth alpine skiing medal at these Games rest squarely on the shoulders of Bode Miller, who has so far won super-G silver and downhill bronze in a fantastic week's Olympic skiing for the Americans.

Miller, like Svindal a two-time World Cup overall champion, was 0.76sec off the pace.

"I flew a lot higher off the top jump than I wanted," said Miller, who won combined bronze in the 2002 Salt Lake City Games and has targeted a medal in each of the five disciplines this time around.

"It put me in a difficult position and I lost some time in the lower section.

"It's going to come down to the slalom and I'm going to go full gas."

Reigning Olympic champion in the discipline, Ted Ligety of the United States, finished 1.91sec off the pace and acknowledged that he too would have to come out all guns blazing in the slalom.

"I feel like I had a decent downhill run," Ligety said. "It was not as clean as it could have been but I'm close enough to some of the big slalom names to make an impact.

"I'm going to have to attack hard if I want to get on podium."

Austrian Benjamin Raich carries the weight of a nation after he and his team-mates failed to medal in the speed events here for the first time since the 1994 Lillehammer Games.

This season's World Cup overall leader came in 12th, 1.55sec off Svindal, and will have his work cut out to make an impression.

Highly-rated Croatian pair Ivica Kostelic and Natko Zrncic-Dim were at 1.05 and 1.72sec.