Super G, Men

This was the first Olympic super-G race, contested as a single run. Super-G had been a World Cup event since 1983. The favorite was Pirmin Zurbriggen, who had already won the downhill gold in Calgary, was the 1987 World Champion, and led the World Cup in 1987, and to that time in 1988. The fifth skier off was France’s Franck Piccard, the bronze medalist in the downhill who had been named after Frank Sinatra. Piccard was initially angry with his time, feeling he had made several mistakes late in the run, but as the remaining seeded skiers came down, his time held up and he had the first Olympic gold medal in the super-G. Zurbriggen had an unusually poor performance for him, finishing tied for fifth. The silver medal went to Austrian Helmut Mayer, who had won one previous World Cup race, a giant slalom in 1987.