Men's downhill at the XX Olympic Winter Games | |||||||||||||
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Venue | Sestriere | ||||||||||||
Date | February 12 | ||||||||||||
Competitors | 55 from 25 nations | ||||||||||||
Winning time | 1:48.80 | ||||||||||||
Medalists | |||||||||||||
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Alpine skiing at the 2006 Winter Olympics | ||
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Combined | men | women |
Downhill | men | women |
Giant slalom | men | women |
Slalom | men | women |
Super-G | men | women |
Men's downhill | |
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Location | Sestriere Kandahar Banchetta |
Vertical | 914 m (2,999 ft) |
Top elevation | 2,800 m (9,186 ft) |
Base elevation | 1,886 m (6,188 ft) |
The men's downhill of the 2006 Winter Olympics was held at Sestriere, Italy, on Sunday, 12 February.
The men's downhill competition is the marquee outdoor event of the Winter Olympics, and is the first alpine event on the schedule. It consists of a single high-speed run down a challenging slope, with a vertical drop exceeding 800 meters (2,625 ft). [1]
The defending Olympic champion was Fritz Strobl of Austria, the reigning world champion was Bode Miller of the United States; Austrian Michael Walchhofer was the defending World Cup downhill champion and led the current season entering the Olympics, ahead of Strobl and American Daron Rahlves. [2]
The thirtieth racer on the course, Antoine Dénériaz of France won the gold medal, Walchhofer took the silver, and the bronze medalist was Bruno Kernen of Switzerland; Miller was fifth, Strobl eighth, and Rahlves tenth. [3] [4] [5] Dénériaz's surprise win was by a margin of 0.72 seconds, the largest in this event in 42 years. [3] He had entered the Olympics tied for tenth in the World Cup downhill standings; his best finish was seventh at Val Gardena in mid-December.
Held on the Kandahar Banchetta piste, the course started at an elevation of 2,800 m (9,186 ft) above sea level with a vertical drop of 914 m (2,999 ft) and a length of 3.299 km (2.05 mi). Dénériaz's winning time of 108.80 seconds yielded an average course speed of 109.158 km/h (67.8 mph), with an average vertical descent speed of 8.401 m/s (27.6 ft/s).
The race was started at 12:00 local time, (UTC +1). At the starting gate, the skies were partly cloudy, the temperature was −5.6 °C (22 °F), and the snow condition was hard; the temperature at the finish was 2.1 °C (36 °F).
Downhill is a form of alpine skiing competition. Whereas the other alpine skiing events emphasize turning and technique, downhill emphasizes "the six components of technique, courage, speed, risk, physical condition and judgement", according to the FIS "International Ski Competition Rules (ICR)". Speeds of up to 130 km/h (81 mph) are common in international competition. Athletes must have an aerodynamically efficient tuck position to minimize drag and increase speed.
Giant slalom (GS) is an alpine skiing and alpine snowboarding competitive discipline. It involves racing between sets of poles ("gates") spaced at a greater distance from each other than in slalom but less than in Super-G.
Super giant slalom, or super-G, is a racing discipline of alpine skiing. Along with the faster downhill, it is regarded as a "speed" event, in contrast to the technical events giant slalom and slalom. It debuted as an official World Cup event during the 1983 season and was added to the official schedule of the World Championships in 1987 and the Winter Olympics in 1988.
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