Ireland's first Olympic skier, Pauli Schwarzacher-Joyce, exceeded all expectations by finishing 16th out of 39 competitors in the Combined event in Nagano, Japan, yesterday. The event was won by Mario Reiter of Austria.

Schwarzacher-Joyce, who had finished 21st in the slalom event of the dual-disciplined event earlier in the week, overcame the extremely difficult conditions of the downhill course to move up the standings. A number of the strong favourites failed even to complete the course.

Reiter's victory consigned defending champion Lasse Kjus of Norway to his second silver medal of the day. Reiter, who held a lead of 1.81 seconds over Kjus after Tuesday's two-leg slalom section, thwarted the Norwegian's challenge in the 2,886-metre downhill to win by 0.59 of a second overall.

Earlier in the day, Schwar zacher-Joyce, the Austrian-born Irishman, had also successfully completed the Downhill event yesterday, coming 27th out of 43 competitors. The race was won by French veteran Jean-Luc Cretier after repeated delays caused by the weather and two spectacular crashes, including that of Austrian favourite Hermann Maier.

Kjus was second and Hannes Trinkl gave Austria a bronze.

Nine of the first 20 racers skied out or crashed, including 20th starter Brian Stemmle of Canada who missed a gate more than halfway down while half a second faster than Cretier.

Former bricklayer Maier, the mighty "Herminator" who has won 10 times this season, followed Cretier, and spectators watched in disbelief and horror as he got too close to a gate on a difficult curve above the opening Alpen jump.

He flew high through the air, cartwheeled three times and crashed through two sets of safety netting before coming to a halt. He then stood up and dusted himself down.