The Men's Downhill competition of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics was held at Whistler Creekside in Whistler, British Columbia. The competition was scheduled for Saturday, February 13, but was postponed due to rain and warm temperatures;[1] it was held on Monday, February 15.[2][3]
The defending Olympic champion was Antoine Dénériaz of France and the reigning world champion was John Kucera of Canada; neither competed as Dénériaz had retired and Kucera was out for the season with a broken leg. Austrian Michael Walchhofer was the defending World Cup downhill champion and Didier Cuche of Switzerland led the current season, ahead of teammate Carlo Janka and Walchhofer.
Switzerland's Didier Défago won the gold medal, Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway took the silver, and the bronze medalist was Bode Miller of the United States;[4] Cuche was sixth, Walchhofer tenth, and Janka eleventh.
The vertical drop of the Dave Murray Downhill course was 853 m (2,799 ft), starting at an elevation of 1,678 m (5,505 ft) above sea level, with a length of 3.105 km (1.929 mi).[5] Défago's winning time of 114.31 seconds yielded an average course speed of 97.787 km/h (60.8 mph), with an average vertical descent speed of 7.462 m/s (24.5 ft/s).
This was the seventeenth edition of the men's downhill at the Olympics and the time margins between the medalists were the closest in history; only 0.09 seconds separated gold and bronze.
The race was started at 10:30 local time, (UTC −8). At the starting gate, the skies were cloudy, the temperature was −1.9 °C (28.6 °F), and the snow condition was granular; the temperature at the finish was 2.5 °C (36.5 °F).
