The men's super-G competition of the Nagano 1998 Olympics was held at Hakuba on Monday, February 16.[1][2]
The defending world champion was Atle Skardal of Norway, France's Luc Alphand was the defending World Cup Super G champion,[3][4] and Markus Wasmeier of Germany was the defending Olympic champion; all three had since retired from competition.
Just three days after a spectacular crash in the downhill, Austria's Hermann Maier returned to win the gold medal, and teammate Hans Knauss tied for the silver with Didier Cuche of Switzerland.[5][6]
The course started at an elevation of 1,490 m (4,888 ft) above sea level with a vertical drop of 650 m (2,133 ft) and a course length of 2.407 km (1.50 mi). Maier's winning time of 94.82 seconds yielded an average course speed of 91.386 km/h (56.8 mph), with an average vertical descent rate of 6.855 m/s (22.5 ft/s).
The race was started at 08:45 local time, (UTC +9). At the starting gate, the skies were clear, the temperature was −3.2 °C (26.2 °F), and the snow condition was hard; the temperature at the finish at −2.5 °C (27.5 °F).