Alpine skiing at the 2006 Winter Olympics – Men's downhill


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,. At the starting gate, the skies were partly cloudy, the temperature was, and the snow condition was hard; the temperature at the finish was.
RankBibNameCountryTimeDifference
30Antoine Dénériaz1:48.80—
10Michael Walchhofer1:49.52+0.72
14Bruno Kernen1:49.82+1.02
17Kjetil André Aamodt1:49.88+1.08
18Bode Miller1:49.93+1.13
15Hermann Maier1:50.00+1.20
28Marco Büchel1:50.04+1.24
4Fritz Strobl1:50.12+1.32
25Patrick Staudacher1:50.29+1.49
1020Daron Rahlves1:50.33+1.53
1122Pierre-Emmanuel Dalcin1:50.35+1.55
123Tobias Grünenfelder1:50.44+1.64
1329Manuel Osborne-Paradis1:50.45+1.65
148Lasse Kjus1:50.64+1.84
1523Scott Macartney1:50.68+1.88
1611François Bourque1:50.70+1.90
1713Ambrosi Hoffmann1:50.72+1.92
186Kurt Sulzenbacher1:50.84+2.04
1927Steve Nyman1:50.88+2.08
1919Peter Fill1:50.88+2.08
2126Aksel Lund Svindal1:50.90+2.10
2221Klaus Kröll1:50.91+2.11
2312Kristian Ghedina1:50.98+2.18
2416Yannick Bertrand1:51.37+2.57
252Finlay Mickel1:51.48+2.68
2624Didier Défago1:51.51+2.71
277John Kucera1:51.55+2.75
2832Andrej Jerman1:51.70+2.90
299Bjarne Solbakken1:51.72+2.92
3038Pavel Chestakov1:51.93+3.13
3134Andrej Šporn1:52.17+3.37
321Craig Branch1:52.55+3.75
3331Patrik Järbyn1:52.87+4.07
3439Petr Záhrobský1:52.90+4.10
3535Claudio Sprecher1:53.34+4.54
3636Bořek Zakouřil1:54.07+5.27
3733Roger Cruickshank1:54.65+5.85
3842Aleksandr Khoroshilov1:54.70+5.90
3937Alex Antor1:55.01+6.21
4041Konstantin Sats1:55.03+6.23
4147Mikael Gayme1:55.73+6.93
4240Maui Gayme1:56.10+7.30
4345Nikolai Hentsch1:56.58+7.78
4449Michał Kałwa1:56.81+8.01
4554Jaroslav Babušiak1:57.45+8.65
4643Renārs Doršs1:57.54+8.74
4751Nikolay Skriabin1:57.56+8.76
4846Sindri Már Pálsson1:57.69+8.89
4950Jorge Mandrú1:58.77+9.97
5048Roger Vidosa1:59.24+10.44
5152Andrei Drygin1:59.41+10.61
5253Alexander Heath1:59.79+10.99
5344Florentin Nicolae2:00.93+12.13
5Ondřej BankDNF
55Ivan HeimschildDNF