Super-G Silver Is Sweet for Girardelli : Skiing: Long recognized as one of the world’s best, he finally gets an Olympic medal.

Marc Girardelli spoiled Norway’s plot to run off with the men’s super-G race Sunday, gaining his first Olympic trophy--a silver medal behind Norwegian Kjetil Andre Aamodt.

The Austrian who has won four World Cup overall titles while skiing for Luxembourg said he “got lucky for a change,” after failing to finish the regular and combined downhills last week. But he admitted: “I didn’t have a chance to win because Aamodt was just too strong.”

Aamodt, 20, of Oslo, became the first Norwegian Alpine gold medalist since Stein Eriksen in 1952 as he led his nation’s 1-3-4 near-sweep of an event that began in the aftermath of a morning snowstorm and ended with sunshine breaking through the clouds.

Starting No. 3, Aamodt blasted down the nearly mile-long course, shorter than a downhill but longer than a giant slalom, in 1:13.04. Next came Girardelli, who pulled up 0.73 of a second short, and it soon became merely a question of which Norwegian would take the bronze.

That turned out to be Jan Einar Thorsen, who was only .06 behind Girardelli and .04 ahead of Ole Christian Furuseth. Norway’s fourth entrant, Tom Stiansen, finished eighth, as many of the pre-race favorites took a tumble or skied off course.

Included in this group were Switzerland’s Franz Heinzer, Italy’s Patrick Holzer and France’s FranckPiccard, who won the Olympic super-G gold medal at Calgary in 1988 and last week stirred his fellow natives of the Savoy by mining silver in the downhill.

Piccard barely got out of the chute before making a mistake that forced him to abandon his run in the super-G, abruptly hushing the frenetic crowd.

Among his unhappy fans was Jean-Claude Killy, co-president of Albertville’s Olympic organizing committee, who said: “I organized these Games for 64 countries, so I have no right to be disappointed, but I’m sad. The course was beautiful, technical, with turns as he likes them . . . but he has been properly defeated. . . . That’s skiing.”

Aamodt watched with restrained glee as his rivals fired and fell back--or just plain fell.

“This is a great day for Norway,” he said. “And it is the best day in my career. I really didn’t expect to do so well. I had a virus when the season started and didn’t begin to ski well until January, but I’ve been training well lately and feel very fit now.”

Girardelli, 28, is apparently fit, too, after surgery on his left knee last summer and mixed results on the World Cup circuit this winter.

“I attacked a bit too much on the top of the course and made some mistakes in that section,” he said. “But in the Olympics, you need luck to win a medal, and I had some today.”

Jeff Olson, 26, of Bozeman, Mont., made perhaps the best run of his career and lead U.S. finishers in 13th place, 2.02 seconds behind Aamodt. Kyle Rasmussen of Angels Camp, Calif., was 17th, AJ Kitt of Rochester, N.Y., 23rd and Tommy Moe of Palmer, Alaska, 28th.

“I decided you’ve got to take chances on this course, and I did,” Olson said. “It was fun, a real blast and a great confidence builder.”

Rasmussen said: “I’m satisfied. I gave it my all but made a few mistakes; otherwise I would have been in the top 15.”

Notably missing from Sunday’s scene, either as competitor or spectator, was Italy’s Alberto Tomba, who does not race in the super-G or downhill. He was training in Sestriere, Italy, for Tuesday’s giant slalom, but told Italian TV later that he was happy to see his World Cup rival, Paul Accola of Switzerland, go without a medal.

Accola finished 10th.