Skip to content

Winter Olympics preview: Downhill

Object Of The Game

Get down the hill as quickly as you can. Downhill is the fastest of the Alpine Skiing events, racers use longer skis to achieve optimum speed through challenging turns, shallow dips, flats, and small airs (jumps). Run times typically last between one-and-a-half minutes and two-and-a-half minutes for World Cup races, which are sometimes decided by as little as one or two hundredths of a second.

Details

  • 64 male competitors; 45 female competitors.

  • One timed run.

Schedule

Date Time Event
2/9/2014 2:00 Men's Downhill
2/12/2014 2:00 Women's Downhill

All times EST.

Most Likely Podium (Men)

  1. Aksel Lund Svindal (Norway): Already the winner of two Downhill races this season, the Super G king has been expanding his horizons recently. With his victory in the Downhill in 2013, Svindal became the first male alpine racer to win titles in four consecutive world championships.

  2. Erik Guay (Canada): After a fifth-place finish in both Downhill and Super G at the 2010 Olympics, Guay won a Downhill gold medal the 2011 World Championships. More recently, he opened the 2014 season with a first-place finish in Downhill at Val Gardena.

  3. Christof Innerhofer (Italy): With three wins in Downhill during the 2013 World Cup season, Innerhofer has focused on this event almost exclusively ahead of the 2014 Games.

Most Likely Podium (Women)

  1. Maria Hoefl-Riesch (Germany): The winner of ten total Downhill races on the World Cup circuit, Hoefl-Riesch’s two most recent victories came in the 2014 season. She’s the hot pick to take gold in Sochi.

  2. Tina Maze (Slovenia): No one in all of skiing had a better 2013 season. Maze ranked first in the World Cup Standings in Super G, Giant Slalom and Combined, while ranking second in Slalom and Downhill. Unsurprisingly she won the overall title handedly.

  3. Anna Fenninger (Austria): The 2011 Super Combined World Champion had a second-place Downhill finish at an Olympic tune-up event in Austria. At only 24, Fenninger has been a stalwart on the World Cup circuit for a seemingly impossible seven years.

2013 FIS World Championships (Men)

  1. Aksel Lund Svindal (Norway)

  2. Dominik Paris (Italy)

  3. David Poisson (France)

2013 FIS World Championships (Women)

  1. Marion Rolland (France)

  2. Nadia Fanchini (Italy)

  3. Maria Hoefl-Riesch (Germany)

2010 Winter Olympics Podium (Men)

  1. Didier Defago (Switzerland)

  2. Aksel Lund Svindal (Norway)

  3. Bode Miller (United States)

2010 Winter Olympics Podium (Women)

  1. Lindsey Vonn (United States)

  2. Julia Mancuso (United States)

  3. Elisabeth Gorgl (Austria)

Daily Newsletter

Get the latest trending sports news daily in your inbox