Winter Olympics: Bode Miller and Benjamin Raich both blew great chances of a gold medal today as Ted Ligety claimed a surprise victory in the men's combined ski event.
Both American bad boy Miller and Austrian Raich straddled a gate pole in the slalom while leading and Ligety took full advantage.
Miller, who was not immediately aware of his mistake, was belatedly disqualified from the first slalom run, officials having also missed the error initially.
Miller, who famously claimed to have skied while drunk in the past, had taken a 0.32-second advantage into his favoured discipline after going fastest in the afternoon downhill.
And he appeared to have stretched that lead to almost a second over Raich, while one of his main rivals Aksel Svindal failed to complete the course.
Miller shrugged: "I don't tend to get that disappointed. At least I don't have to go all the way down to Turin for a medal tomorrow.
"I didn't protest, it is totally out of my hands and you just deal with it. I've straddled probably more times than most people have finished slalom.
"It's a drag but the downhill was good and I made it to the finish. I was in a position to win by a significant margin even with poor skiing in the first run."
Having gained silver medals in both the combined and giant-slalom in Salt Lake City four years ago, the 28-year-old from New Hampshire looked a virtual certainty to secure victory.
The same was being said of Raich when he exited the start gate as the last competitor in the second slalom run. But he suffered the same fate as Miller.
Raich's mistake handed unexpected victory to Miller's 21-year-old team-mate Ligety, who had produced a storming final slalom run under the floodlights at Sestriere.
Croatian Ivica Kostelic grabbed the silver medal ahead of Germany's delighted bronze medallist Rainer Schoenfelder.
Briton Noel Baxter produced an impressive pair of slalom runs to record an entirely creditable finishing position of 14th, 3.44secs behind the winner.