BEIJING

Aleksander Aamodt Kilde took the lead after the first round of the men’s alpine combined ski event on Thursday at the Beijing Games.

The Norwegian, who won bronze in the super-G on Tuesday, leads Canada’s Jack Crawford by 0.02 seconds after descending the event.

The handset adds the times of a downhill run and a slalom run.

Another Canadian, Brodie Seger, was third fastest, 0.42 behind Kilde.

Kilde, 29, finished fifth in Monday’s rescheduled downhill race, with Crawford finishing just above him in fourth.

One of Thursday’s favorites, Alexis Pinturault, is almost two seconds behind Kilde. The Frenchman won silver in the combined at the 2021 world championships – where he was defending his title – and at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games, but failed to finish four of the six slalom races this season.

Thursday’s race has just 27 participants in total, down from 43 for the downhill and 47 for the super-G earlier in the week. It is the first time in Olympic history that the event has gone ahead without at least one American runner.

The race had to be delayed by around 10 minutes when Yannick Chabloz crashed and was dragged away in a sled. The Swiss skier fell into a barrier and then descended part of the mountain.

___

More from AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/winter-olympics and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports