Venue Sestriere Competitors 55 from 25 nations | Date February 12 Winning time 1:48.80 | |
The men's downhill competition is one of the marquee events 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 2624 feet (800 m).
The defending Olympic champion was Fritz Strobl of Austria, and the reigning world champion was Bode Miller of the U.S., who won the downhill at the 2005 World Championships. Austrian Michael Walchhofer led the downhill World Cup entering the Olympics, ahead of Strobl and American Daron Rahlves.
At the 2006 Olympics, the men's downhill started at an elevation of 9186 feet (2800 m) above sea level and descended 2999 feet (914 m), at a course length of 2.05 miles (3.30 km). The winning time of Antoine Dénériaz of France was 108.8 seconds, an average course speed of 67.8 mph (109.2 km/h), with an average vertical descent speed of 27.6 ft/s (8.4 m/s).
Results
The results of the men's downhill event in Alpine skiing at the 2006 Winter Olympics.