Riesch wins gold as Vonn crashes out

American Lindsey Vonn missed out on her second gold in as many days after a heart-breaking fall in the slalom portion of the super-combined event.

Germany's Maria Riesch won after Vonn, who won Wednesday's downhill on and led after the combined's downhill leg, caught her right ski on a slalom pole.

Julia Mancuso took her second silver of the Games and Anja Paerson recovered from Wednesday's crash to take bronze.

Britain's Chemmy Alcott finished 11th to equal her best Olympic performance.

Vonn's fall, half-way down the slalom run, was another Olympic blow for the American, who missed out on medals in Turin four years ago after crashing in training.

She won on Wednesday despite struggling with a shin injury in the build-up to the Games, which meant she had hardly skied for two weeks.

"It didn't go my way today, but that's ski racing," said Vonn. "I wish I could have made it to the bottom. My shin's killing me. It's hurting so bad."

I almost straddled a gate at 70mph; after some close calls, I lost some confidence Chemmy Alcott

Her close friend Riesch, who was 0.33 sec behind in the downhill leg, capitalised after a stellar slalom performance put her in provisional top spot.

"That was incredible," said Riesch, a regular runner-up to Vonn in the World Cup series over the last few years, who felt the slalom course was very easy.

"I knew it was a course to attack, the setting was not so difficult. It was attack and nothing else. No one else was having problems so it was full gas and it worked."

Reigning Olympic slalom champion Paerson picked up her second consecutive bronze from the combined event, just 24 hours after a crash that saw her fly 60m through the air.

"I was pretty scared this morning because I was hurting a lot but I didn't want to miss out this event," said the Swede.

"It was a fight. It hurts, but I'm fighting and trying to keep smile. It was amazing even to be starting."

The women's super-combined was postponed from Sunday because of warm weather in Whistler.

Alcott impresses in super combined

Meanwhile, Londoner Alcott was pleased to have produced an impressive slalom, climbing seven places after what she described as a poor downhill.

"I almost straddled a gate at 70mph. After some close calls, I lost some confidence," she said of the first leg.

"I had such a good run in the downhill yesterday and I felt like I could really build on that, but if anything I went backwards.

"I had no pressure on me from the poor downhill, so it was easier to pull out a good slalom. Ten years ago I was a good slalom skier so I tapped into that confidence."

Head to our live pageto see the full women's super-combined results.

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