Olympic Alpine Skiing 2014: Live Men's Downhill Medal Results and Analysis

The winner of the Olympic men's downhill race was not a favorite going in, but he became a household name afterward.

Austria's Matthias Mayer was the 11th racer on the course at the Rosa Khutor Alpine Center and he would prove to be the best of the 50 competitors with a time of 2:06.23.

Mayer, who has not finished higher than fifth in a World Cup downhill race, took the skiing world by surprise as the favorites slipped up in the middle of the course. 

Mayer was close to being taken out of the lead by Italy's Christof Innerhofer, but the Austrian survived by six-hundredths of a second to keep the gold. 

Innerhofer finished in second place with a time of 2:06.29, while Kjetil Jansrud of Norway earned the bronze by racing a 2:06.33. 

Bode Miller of the United States came in as the gold-medal favorite, but he failed to place anywhere close to the podium in eighth after he lost plenty of time in the middle of the course.

The same section of the course caused problems for two other medal hopefuls, Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway and Didier Defago of Switzerland. Svindal finished fourth and Defago ended up in 14th. 

The highest-placing American was Travis Ganong, who finished in fifth place with a time of 2:06.64. 

Gold: Matthias Mayer (Austria): 2:06.23

Silver: Christof Innerhofer (Italy): 2:06.29

Bronze: Kjetil Jansrud (Norway): 2:06.33 

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