Olympic Alpine skiing remaining all in the family in Beijing

BEIJING — Austrian skier Johannes Strolz was preparing to sit on a stage in a room filled with dozens of journalists to describe his improbable run to the Alpine combined title at the Beijing Olympics when his phone rang. “It’s just an unbelievable moment for all of us and my family.” Strolz’s father, Hubert, won gold in combined and silver in giant slalom at the 1988 Calgary Games, then almost won another Olympic combined four years later in Albertville but missed a gate near the end of the race. “She always told me no one remembers fourth place, and it feels really good to not be in that situation,” said Crawford, who finished fourth in Monday’s downhill and was also fourth in the combined at last year’s world championships. “It’s kind of cutthroat, but it’s true at the Olympic Games — a medal is everything.” Strolz had a career-best finish of 10th in more than eight years of World Cup racing and was dropped from the powerhouse Austrian team at the end of last season. “The Austria team is a strong team and it’s not so easy to be on this team.” For Kilde, it was his second consecutive medal after a bronze in super-G. “I hadn’t skied slalom in two years,” the Norwegian speed specialist said, adding that he got some slalom tips from his girlfriend, Mikaela Shiffrin, whose 47 World Cup slalom wins are the most in a single event by a man or woman — even though the American failed to finish both of her events so far in Beijing.