| Men's Downhill at the XVII Olympic Winter Games | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | |||||||||||||
| Venue | Kvitfjell | ||||||||||||
| Date | 13 February 1994 | ||||||||||||
| Competitors | 55 from 26 nations | ||||||||||||
| Winning time | 1:45.75 | ||||||||||||
| Medalists | |||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
| Alpine skiing at the 1994 Winter Olympics | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
| Combined | men | women |
| Downhill | men | women |
| Giant slalom | men | women |
| Slalom | men | women |
| Super-G | men | women |
| Men's Downhill | |
|---|---|
| Location | Kvitfjell Olympiabakken |
| Vertical | 838 m (2,749 ft) |
| Top elevation | 1,020 m (3,346 ft) |
| Base elevation | 182 m (597 ft) |
TheMen'sDownhill competition of theLillehammer 1994 Olympics was held atKvitfjell on Sunday, 13 February.[1][2]
The reigningworld champion wasUrs Lehmann and the reigningOlympic champion wasPatrick Ortlieb;Franz Heinzer was the defendingWorld Cup downhill champion andMarc Girardelli led thecurrent season.[3][4]
Tommy Moe, an American ofNorwegian ancestry, edged outKjetil André Aamodt of Norway by 0.04 seconds to take the gold medal in the downhill.[5][6][7]Ed Podivinsky of Canada was the bronze medalist, just 0.12 seconds behind Moe. Ortlieb was fourth, Girardelli fifth, Alphand eighth, and Heinzer did not finish.
The defending champion was in the field for the first time since1976, when1972 championBernhard Russi won the silver medal. Ortlieb was just off the podium in 1994, which remains the second-best result by a defending champion. Prior to Russi, only two champions had been in the field to defend, but neither made the top ten:Henri Oreiller was 14th in 1952 andEgon Zimmermann finished 13th in 1968.
TheOlympiabakken course started at anelevation of 1,020 m (3,346 ft) abovesea level with a vertical drop of 838 m (2,749 ft) and a course length of 3.035 km (1.89 mi). Moe's winning time was 105.75 seconds, yielding an average course speed of 103.319 km/h (64.2 mph), with an average vertical descent rate of 7.924 m/s (26.0 ft/s).
The race was started at 11:00local time, (UTC +1). At the starting gate, the skies were clear, the temperature was −15.0 °C (5 °F), and the snow condition was hard; the temperature at the finish was lower, at −16.0 °C (3 °F).[1]
