Alpine skiing was introduced with to the Olympics with a single event, the combined (one downhill run and two slalom runs). While Nordic remained an all-male province, alpine was opened to men and women. Germans took gold and silver in both the men's and women's alpine combined events; Franz Pfnuer and Christl Cranz were the new champions; Dick Durrance, who grew up in Florida but spent several years in Germany learning to ski before Hitler took power, was the runaway best US skier, finishing 10th.