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 .
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.
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. Dénériaz's surprise win was by a margin of 0.72 seconds, the largest in this event in 42 years. 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 above sea level with a vertical drop of and a length of . Dénériaz's winning time of 108.80 seconds yielded an average course speed of , with an average vertical descent speed of .
Results The race was started at 12:00 local time, (UTC +1). At the starting gate, the skies were partly cloudy, the temperature was , and the snow condition was hard; the temperature at the finish was .
Rank Bib Name Country Time Difference 30 Antoine Dénériaz 1:48.80 — 10Michael Walchhofer 1:49.52 +0.72 14 Bruno Kernen 1:49.82 +1.02 17 Kjetil André Aamodt 1:49.88 +1.08 18 Bode Miller 1:49.93 +1.13 15 Hermann Maier 1:50.00 +1.20 28 Marco Büchel 1:50.04 +1.24 4 Fritz Strobl 1:50.12 +1.32 25 Patrick Staudacher 1:50.29 +1.49 10 20 Daron Rahlves 1:50.33 +1.53 11 22 Pierre-Emmanuel Dalcin 1:50.35 +1.55 12 3 Tobias Grünenfelder 1:50.44 +1.64 13 29 Manuel Osborne-Paradis 1:50.45 +1.65 14 8 Lasse Kjus 1:50.64 +1.84 15 23 Scott Macartney 1:50.68 +1.88 16 11 François Bourque 1:50.70 +1.90 17 13 Ambrosi Hoffmann 1:50.72 +1.92 18 6 Kurt Sulzenbacher 1:50.84 +2.04 19 27 Steve Nyman 1:50.88 +2.08 19 Peter Fill 21 26 Aksel Lund Svindal 1:50.90 +2.10 22 21 Klaus Kröll 1:50.91 +2.11 23 12 Kristian Ghedina 1:50.98 +2.18 24 16 Yannick Bertrand 1:51.37 +2.57 25 2 Finlay Mickel 1:51.48 +2.68 26 24 Didier Défago 1:51.51 +2.71 27 7 John Kucera 1:51.55 +2.75 28 32 Andrej Jerman 1:51.70 +2.90 29 9 Bjarne Solbakken 1:51.72 +2.92 30 38 Pavel Chestakov 1:51.93 +3.13 31 34 Andrej Šporn 1:52.17 +3.37 32 1 Craig Branch 1:52.55 +3.75 33 31 Patrik Järbyn 1:52.87 +4.07 34 39 Petr Záhrobský 1:52.90 +4.10 35 35 Claudio Sprecher 1:53.34 +4.54 36 36 Bořek Zakouřil 1:54.07 +5.27 37 33 Roger Cruickshank 1:54.65 +5.85 38 42 Aleksandr Khoroshilov 1:54.70 +5.90 39 37 Alex Antor 1:55.01 +6.21 40 41 Konstantin Sats 1:55.03 +6.23 41 47 Mikael Gayme 1:55.73 +6.93 42 40 Maui Gayme 1:56.10 +7.30 43 45 Nikolai Hentsch 1:56.58 +7.78 44 49 Michał Kałwa 1:56.81 +8.01 45 54 Jaroslav Babušiak 1:57.45 +8.65 46 43 Renārs Doršs 1:57.54 +8.74 47 51 Nikolay Skriabin 1:57.56 +8.76 48 46 Sindri Már Pálsson 1:57.69 +8.89 49 50 Jorge Mandrú 1:58.77 +9.97 50 48 Roger Vidosa 1:59.24 +10.44 51 52 Andrei Drygin 1:59.41 +10.61 52 53 Alexander Heath 1:59.79 +10.99 53 44 Florentin Nicolae 2:00.93 +12.13 5 Ondřej Bank DNF 55 Ivan Heimschild DNF
References
External links Official Olympic Report FIS results