OLYMPICS: Downhill joy for jubilant Deneriaz
Monday February 13 2006
ANTOINE DENERIAZ of France, the last man out of the gate with a chance to win, pulled off a startling upset in the Olympic downhill yesterday to steal what seemed to be a sure gold medal from Austrian Michael Walchhofer.
Walchhofer settled for silver with Bruno Kernen of Switzerland in third. Deneriaz's winning margin of 72-hundredths of a second was the largest in the Olympic downhill since the 1964 Innsbruck Games.
"It's the best day of my life," Deneriaz said. "It's like a dream. No one believed it could be true."
The ballyhooed US-Austrian rivalry was a bust. Bode Miller was the top American, in fifth place while his teammate Daron Rahlves, the pre-race favorite, was a disappointing 10th, 1.5 seconds slower than Deneriaz.
"It would have taken a hurricane wind to get me into first," Miller said. "The way Deneriaz skied today, he was pretty much untouchable." Rahlves offered no excuses. "I felt like I was flowing but something wasn't working." The 30th skier down the mountain, Deneriaz won in 1 minute, 48.80 seconds, ahead of Walchhofer's 1:49.52 and Kernen's 1:49.82.
Kjetil-Andre Aamodt of Norway was fourth, six-hundredths of a second shy of his eighth Olympic medal.
Finished
Deneriaz, 29, had finished no better than sixth in a World Cup race this season, and that was a super-G. He must like Italy, though. Two of his three World Cup wins, including his last in December 2003, came at Val Gardena in the northeast.
Deneriaz tore a ligament in his knee in a crash in Chamonix, in January 2005 and missed the remainder of last season. He had made a steady comeback, but few thought he could win in Sestriere.
To try to keep the pressure off, Deneriaz told himself it was only a race.
