Winter Olympics: Mayer surpasses father to win downhill gold

Agence France-Presse

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Risk-taking Austrian tyro Matthias Mayer overcame a poor upper section to storm to Olympic gold in the blue riband Winter Games event of the men's downhill on Sunday.

LIKE FATHER, BETTER SON. Gold medalist Matthias Mayer of Austria celebrates during the flower ceremony after the Men's Downhill race at the Rosa Khutor Alpine Center at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Games. Photo by Antonio Bat/EPA

ROSA KHUTOR, Russia – Risk-taking Austrian tyro Matthias Mayer overcame a poor upper section to storm to Olympic gold in the blue riband Winter Games event of the men’s downhill on Sunday.

The 23-year-old, whose favorite discipline is the shorter speed event, the super-G, clocked 2min 06.23sec down the 3.5km-long course for the first Austrian downhill gold since Fritz Stroebl in the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City.

Mayer, who has never won a major international downhill, also bettered his father Helmut’s silver-medal showing in the super-G at the Calgary Games in 1998.

“Of course it means a lot to me,” an emotional Mayer said. “It’s really difficult to go down the track without mistakes.

“I thought maybe in a few years I could dream of this sort of achievement. It was really cool and my family will be excited.

ALL DOWNHILL FROM HERE. Matthias Mayer of Austria in action during the Men's Downhill race at the Rosa Khutor Alpine Center during the Sochi 2014 Olympic Games. Photo by Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/EPA

“I woke up this morning and I knew that I could win this race. I was smiling the whole day, all throughout the inspection. It was my day.”

In a gripping morning’s racing when the lead changed hands five times until Mayer came bombing down the slope with bib number 11, Italian Christof Innerhofer took silver at just six-hundredths, the equivalent to 1.66 meters.

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“It has been a big dream for me to win a medal at the Olympic Games, so I can’t really believe it,” admitted a stunned Innerhofer. “I couldn’t be happier.”

Norway’s Kjetil Jansrud claimed bronze a further 0.04sec adrift, with teammate and world downhill champion Aksel Lund Svindal in fourth and another strong favorite, Bode Miller of the United States, in eighth.

Defending Olympic champion Didier Defago of Switzerland finished 14th at 1.56sec.

Mayer, who earlier this week had named both Svindal and the 36-year-old Miller as his “idols and role models”, skied a run the American would have been proud of.

Down on two splits in the upper section of the course, which was smooth and icy in overcast conditions, Mayer nailed the tricky technical middle part which demands slick rhythmic turns to maintain speed before a gliding section favored by the heavier racers.

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Mastering the three jumps which catapult the racers 60 meters while traveling at speeds around 135kph, Mayer held his line through to the end in front of a vociferous crowd packed into the purpose-built stands.

Innerhofer made advantage of his superior size and liking of icy tracks to secure a 0.58sec lead up top, but the Italian’s deficit was slowly eaten away by the time he came screaming through the finish line, just hundredths of a second away from the ultimate Winter Games glory.

“I risked so much at the top,” acknowledged Innerhofer. “I thought to myself, ‘Come on Chris, you must push harder’, so I pushed harder. I thought that if I risked a lot it could go well and it could go badly, but at least I could say after the race that I tried.”

For Svindal and Miller, who each claimed a gold, silver and bronze at the Vancouver Games in 2010, there was disappointment.

“I feel disappointed. I skied hard and well, and that’s the most important thing. It just didn’t go all right,” said Miller, racing in his record fifth Olympics.

“It’s tough, obviously I was looking to win and I thought I had a good chance of it. I was well prepared so it’s tough when you don’t get things to go your way.

“I’m not really sure what went wrong. 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 the course as hard as I could and not really back off, but it requires a lot of tactics today which I didn’t apply.”

Mayer added: “Before the race, Bode told me that he was really nervous, but I was looking forward to the race, and I think that was an advantage.”

Svindal was left crestfallen to miss out on a podium place by just 0.19sec.

“It is pretty much the worst place to be. I’ve been there before and probably will be again,” the 31-year-old said.

“If you want to fight for medals, you have to be prepared to lose out on them.

“I made a few small mistakes. It was hard to stay balanced, I was pushed around a little too much and I lost my line.” – Rappler.com

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