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Wins First French Gold in 30 Years Friday, February 13, 1998 Hakuba, Japan The Olympics represent the ability to realize ultimate potential. The gold is ready and waiting for any athlete who can perform when it counts. This is turning out to be the Olympics of underdog victories — in both skiing and snowboarding, and the men's downhill was no exception. Though he has never won a World Cup event, Jean-Luc Cretier won the gold medal for France for the first time since Jean-Claude Killy in 1968. Cretier, the third man on the course, held it down through the first S-turn of the course, a turn which took out 15 of the 43 competitors. The suspect gate was moved to the right just before the race, when inspectors felt the area might be unsafe in the high winds. Training had been cancelled earlier in the week, making finals a dry run for gold on the new course configuation. More than one-third of the athletes either crashed or missed the gate. During the latter half of the race, as the sun shone, the spray of slushy snow and the rutted tracks left by skiers were clearly visible — an indication of soft snow that meant late-starting skiers had more difficulty maintaining the high speeds of the earlier starts. The silver was won by Lasse Kjus of Norway, who also won a silver medal in the men's combined slalom earlier this week. Hannes Trinkl of Austria won the bronze. Trinkl is currently 8th in the World Cup downhill standings, behind three other Austrians in this event, further demonstrating the underdog spirit of these Games.
The American contenders, Kyle Rasmussen and Tommy Moe, came in 9th and 12th, respectively, surviving better than some of the favorites on this treacherous course. Well, they finished. "I had fun defending my gold medal title. However, now it looks like Cretier is going to be the man. I say good for him, because he skied great today," the Olympic Committee reported Moe as saying.
Hopefully there will be better conditions to be had on Saturday's Super G course. Click here for technical analysis of the men's downhill.
Results 1 Jean-Luc Cretier France 1:50.11 2 Lasse Kjus Norway 1:50.51 3 Hannes Trinkl Austria 1:50.63 4 Juerg Gruenenfelder Switzerland 1:50.64 5 Ed Podivinsky Canada 1:50.71 6 Kristian Ghedina Italy 1:50.76 7 Andreas Schifferer Austria 1:50.77 8 Didier Cuche Switzerland 1:50.91 9 Kyle Rasmussen United States 1:51.09 10 Patrik Jaerbyn Sweden 1:51.22 11 Fritz Strobl Austria 1:51.34 12 Tommy Moe United States 1:51.43 13 Kjetil Andre Aamodt Norway 1:51.72 14 Franco Cavegn Switzerland 1:51.74 15 Jason Rosener United States 1:52.33 16 Werner Perathoner Italy 1:52.36 17 Tsuyoshi Tomii Japan 1:52.62 18 Andrej Filischkin Russia 1:52.65 19 Kevin Wert Canada 1:52.67 20 Jernej Koblar Slovenia 1:52.79 21 Enis Becirbecovic Bosnia-Herzegovina 1:53.47 22 Andrzej Bachleda Poland 1:53.62 23 Graham Bell Britain 1:53.93 24 Vasilij Bezsmelnizin Russia 1:54.27 25 Linas Vaitkus Lithuania 1:56.22 26 Nils Linneberg Chile 1:56.59 27 Paul Patrick Schwarzacher-Joyce Ireland 1:58.71 28 Rainer Grob Chile 1:58.75 Hermann Maier Austria DNF Nicolas Burtin France DNF Bruno II Kernen Switzerland DNF Luca Cattaneo Italy DNF Peter Runnggaldier Italy DNF Luke Sauder Canada DNF Ales Brezavsek Slovenia DNF A.J. Kitt United States DNF Brian Stemmle Canada DNF Adrien Duvillard France DNF Peter Pen Slovenia DNF Juergen Hasler Liechtenstein DNF Andrew Freshwater Britain DNF Yasuyuki Takishita Japan DNF Thomas Grob Chile DNF
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