Winter Olympics: Defago Upsets Favorites To Take Downhill Gold

If you were to assume that skiing is popular and widely followed in a country which is almost synonymous with mountains, you would be right; skiing is massive in Switzerland.

If you would assume that Switzerland therefore has a great history of success and triumph in the sport, you would also be right; Switzerland is second only to alpine neighbors Austria in terms of history.

But if you'd think this meant Switzerland was an absolute lock to take home a couple of skiing gold medals at these Olympics, well, that might've been a little presumptuous of you.

It had, after all, been 16 years since Switzerland last won Olympic skiing gold, with Vreni Schneider's win in the women's Slalom in Lillehammer.

For a male gold you would have to go back even further, to 1988 in Calgary, where Pirmin Zurbriggen took the downhill.

But this rather glaring steak of failure was ended today.

Didier Defago took a thrilling win in the downhill event, narrowly beating out Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway and American fan-favorite Bode Miller.

Defago's victory continues another unusual streak—that of surprising, upset victories in the downhill, traditionally considered the blue ribbon event of the Olympic calender. Since the aforementioned Pirmin Zurbriggen took his gold in 1988, none of the pre-event favorites have managed to win—from Patrick Ortlieb's win in 1992 to Antoine Deneriaz in 2006.

And again today, the favorites fell short.

Bode Miller came closest with his bronze, but Didier Cuche, Michael Walchhofer, and Carlo Janka all finished well off the podium, and Erik Guay proved the best Canadian with a fifth place.

It was nail-biting race, with the eventual margin of victory only amounting to a 0.07 fraction of a second between Defago and Svindal, and 0.09 of a second between the Swissman and Bode Miller.

The race began in earnest with the third starter, David Poisson of France, who rode a relatively error-free race which would eventually bring him to seventh.

Poisson remained in the hot seat until Miller started with bib eight.

Blasting out of the start gate, Miller recorded phenomenal times at the first two measurements (which no one would end up equalling). But a series of small errors in the middle section, a natural by-product of Miller's extraordinarily aggressive style, eventually led him to only improve Poisson by 0.40s.

Miller's time stood for awhile, surviving a few scares from eventual fourth and fifth winners, Mario Scheiber and Erik Guay, who were only 0.12s and 0.24s removed, respectively.

After the half-way break, however, the assault on Miller by the favorites began. Svindal rode a technically-perfect race to the hot seat, besting Miller by 0.02s, after trailing at every time check.

Immediately after, Austria's Michael Walchhofer couldn't take the gold which had eluded him throughout his career.

But Defago succeeded where the more favored Austrian failed, also riding error free to the eventual winning time of 1m 54.31s.

Defago cheered wildly as he crossed the finish, convinced he'd done enough. And time vindicated him, with an impressive series of names all unable to even come close.

The victory will certainly come as a surprise to Defago, 32 who works as an architect during the summer.

His previous Olympic best was a sixth place in the Salt Lake City Super-G, and he has only booked three World Cup victories in his 13-year career. Two of those victories were particularly memorable, when last season he booked back-to-back downhill victories in the two most prestigious races, the Hahnenkamm in Kitzbühel and the Lauberhorn in Wengen.

But his current season, until now, had not been exceptional, recording only two podium finishes (both second) in World Cup races.

And yet today, the underdog wins again.

Today's results are also exciting in the sense that Defago, Svindal, and Miller figure to be favorites in several other events as well.

And if the close, competitive racing of today is anything to go by, it will be a spectacular two weeks of skiing in Whistler during these games.