Women's combined at Beijing 2022 Olympics: Preview, schedule & stars to watch

The combined will wrap up the women's alpine skiing programme at the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games.

Since 2010, the event has consisted of a downhill run and a slalom, and at these Games is scheduled to be the last individual medal available for the skiers.

It takes place on Thursday (17 February) at the Yanqing National Skiing Centre: the downhill starts at 10:30am local time (3:30am CET, 18:30 PST on Wednesday), while the slalom takes place at 14:00 (07:00am CET, 22:00 PST on Wednesday).

Switzerland's Michelle Gisin is the defending champion: Janica Kostelić of Croatia (2002-2006) and Maria Höfl-Riesch of Germany (2010-2014) were the only two women ever to retain the Olympic title in this event, which hasn't featured in the FIS World Cup over the last two seasons.

Since the combined was first held in 1936 only European skiers have won gold. In 1952 and 1984 the event wasn't part of the Olympic programme.

Mikaela Shiffrin (USA): Silver medallist at PyeongChang 2018, the American is the reigning world champion from Cortina 2021, when she finished ahead of Petra Vlhova. The Slovak though is forced to miss the Olympic event due to an ankle tendon injury, which could be a benefit to Shiffrin's final individual medal chance of these Games.

Michelle Gisin (SUI): The reigning Olympic champion is also a two-time world medallist (silver in 2017, bronze in 2019).

Wendy Holdener (SUI): The 28-year-old Swiss, who just made the podium in slalom at Beijing 2022, was bronze medallist in PyeongChang and won the discipline's globe in 2016 and 2018.

Federica Brignone (ITA): Two-time combined globe winner (2019, 2020), the Italian has won five combined events on the FIS World Cup circuit.