Austrian Mayer Wins Downhill
KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia - Matthias Mayer, an unheralded 23-year-old from the deep Austrian team, won the gold medal in the men's downhill on Sunday, with all the top skiers having completed their runs. Christof Innerhofer of Italy placed second, six hundredths of a second behind, and Kjetil Jansrud of Norway was third.
Although he has had some success at the Super-G discipline, Mayer has never been on a podium for a World Cup downhill.
'This is unbelievable,' he said. 'I thought maybe in a few years I could dream of this sort of achievement.'
Bode Miller, the American veteran who had been the most impressive skier in training, started off fast at the top of the mountain but was bounced wide of his intended line in the middle section, could not recover on time and failed to medal, placing eighth.
'I'm not really sure what went wrong,' Miller said. 'The visibility is different today and that's the only disadvantage I had. But it's something I face all the time. If the visibility is really good, I can ski my best; if it isn't, I can't.
'I wanted to ski it as hard as I could and not really back off, but it requires a lot of tactics today, which I didn't apply.'
'I feel disappointed,' he said.
Miller's teammate Travis Ganong, who stood fifth, said of Miller's mistake: 'Bummer for him. Critical mistake at the wrong part of the course.'
Another favorite, Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway, lost speed in the same middle section as Miller, and stood in fourth place. Didier Défago of Switzerland and others also lost time in that section, which had not been considered an especially challenging portion of the course.
Innerhofer had led for most of his run. But fatigue set in, and a few wobbly jump landings later, he was second by 0.06. Still, he enthusiastically celebrated his apparent silver medal.
During training, there was much talk about the danger of the course, and several racers crashed. But race day played out safely. All but one of the top 30 skiers finished. Only Johan Clarey of France did not, and he skied off the course without mishap.
The 2.2-mile course asked racers to descend about 3,500 feet in roughly two minutes. It has a series of gnarly, unnerving features with evocative names like the Russian Trampoline, the Toboggan, the Estonian Tube and Bears Brow.
Skiers soared in the air for some of the longest distances in Olympic ski racing history, especially off the Lake Jump, so named because the only thing skiers can see in the distance as they approach the crest of the jump is a snow-making lake.
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