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Luca Aerni’s surprise combined gold gives Swiss its best worlds in 26 years

The Swiss team is enjoying home snow at the world championships, and perhaps nobody benefited more than unheralded Luca Aerni in the super combined on Monday.

Aerni became the third Swiss to win gold in six races so far at worlds, edging the world’s best overall skier, Austrian Marcel Hirscher, by .01 of a second after downhill and slalom runs in St. Moritz.

Another Swiss, Mauro Caviezel, earned bronze, .06 behind. There are still five races left at worlds, but the Swiss already have their best medal haul in 26 years, since the tail end of their dominant era of the likes of Vreni Schneider and Pirmin Zurbriggen.