WINTER OLYMPICS RESULTS: It was appropriate that Robert Redford, the star of the movie Downhill Racer in which he played a skier who emerged from obscurity to win the Olympic men's downhill gold medal, was among the 30,000 spectators at Snowbasin here yesterday.
It may be pushing it to claim Fritz Strobl came from nowhere to win the blue-riband event of the Games, but, during the pre-race discussion as to who would win gold, nearly all the conversation centred solely around his Austrian team-mate Stephan Eberharter.
That was understandable as Strobl had never won even a medal at a major championships before, while Eberharter had dominated this winter's World Cup circuit.
Eberharter joined his fellow countryman Hermann Maier on a long list of favourites who have failed to win the downhill. At least Eberharter avoided the fate of "The Herminator" four years ago - Maier crashed out - but his bronze will have been scant consolation.
Strobl, (29), was a consistent competitor with a reputation for failing to deliver when it mattered. This, though, is the race which makes legends and Strobl will now be revered in Austria as long as people gather off-piste to discuss skiing, taking his place in the European pantheon alongside the likes of previous champions Jean-Claude Killy, Bernhard Russi and Franz Klammer.
"It's sensational, I didn't expect it," said the new champion. "Here I had room 111 and I came first. In [the 1998 Games at] Nagano, I had room 11 and I came 11th. So somehow it fits together."
This is the third consecutive Games in which the favourite has failed. The previous two champions - the American Tommy Moe in 1994 and France's Jean-Luc Cretier in 1998 - never won a World Cup downhill before or after claiming Olympic gold.
Strobl's best previous performance at this level had been fourth in the world championships in 1997.
Eberharter, whose only previous Olympic medal was a silver in the 1998 giant slalom, had star billing after winning five of eight World Cup downhills this season.
He was the ninth to push out of the starting hut perched atop Mount Allen and looked menacing enough, ripping down the piste to knock more than half a second off the previous best time, set by his compatriot Christian Greber, on the treacherous 3,016-metre Grizzly course which plunges 883 metres through canyons and gulches.
But the 32-year-old, who had hoped to become the oldest ever Olympic champion in men's Alpine skiing, could not claim a flawless run and it was not enough. His lead lasted barely 100 seconds and he had not even had time to catch his breath before Strobl's time of 1 min 39.13 sec flashed up on the clock as being 0.28 of a second faster than his own effort.
"It was just the perfect day," Strobl said. "The weather was beautiful, the course was fine and I was able to run my race the way I had planned." Eberharter's reaction was initially hidden behind his goggles but then a frown crossed his brow as he realised his crown had been stolen by the Salzburg policeman.
Moments later that disappointment deepened as Norway's Lasse Kjus came down to also pip him and repeat his silver of four years ago in Nagano.
"It was not a great run, it didn't go as I had expected," said Eberharter. "People might think that I failed but I don't see it as such. I made some technical mistakes on the iciest section of the course and I couldn't find the best line."
No one can claim it was a fluke either by Strobl on a course designed by Russi, the 1972 downhill champion in Sapporo. Set nearly 3,000 metres high in the Wasatch Mountains and carved into the steep eastern and northern faces of Snowbasin, it had a reputation as a "proper" skiers' course.
Strobl is the fifth Austrian to win this title. He can now expect to earn millions in sponsorship endorsing everything from ski equipment to Viennese slices. His days on the beat should certainly be at an end - not that the Salzburg police department are likely to miss the part-time policeman too much: he has not arrested anyone for three years.
Eberharter had said before the race that the world would continue to turn even if he did not win. In five turns - or five days - he will again be the favourite to win the super-G. Five days after that, he will be a medal favourite in the giant slalom.
He could find himself in a remarkably similar position to Maier - missing here due to injury - who bounced back after his fall in Nagano to claim gold in both.
If Redford had been in charge of this production then Australia's AJ Bear would surely have won on Grizzly, rather than finish 37th as he did.
But this was a ski race rather than a Hollywood movie and it was Strobl who tamed the twin-headed beast of the course and Eberharter.
Guardian Service
(Salt Lake City)
MEN'S DOWNHILL FINAL
1 F Strobl (Aus) 1:39.13; 2 L Kjus (Nor) 1:39.35 +0.22; 3 S Eberharter (Aus) 1:39.41 +0.28; 4. K Andre Aamodt (Nor) 1:39.78 +0.65; 5 C Cretier (Fra) 1:39.96 +0.83. 53. P P Schwarzacher-Joyce (Irl) 1:54.42 +15.29.
CROSS COUNTRY
Women's 15km Freestyle final: 1 Stefania Belmondo (Ita) 39mins 54.4secs, 2 Larissa Lazutina (Rus) 39.56.2, 3 Katerina Neumannova (Cze) 40:01.3.
Men's 30km freestyle final: 1 Johann Muehlegg (Spa) 1:09:28.9, 2 Christian Hoffman (Aut) 1:11:31.0, 3 Mikhail Botvinov (Aut) 1:11:32.3.
ICE HOCKEY
Men's preliminary rd: Group A: Germany 3 Slovakia 0, Latvia 4 Austria 2 Group B: Belarus 1 Ukraine 0, Switzerland 3 France 3.
SNOWBOARDING
Women's Halfpipe: Final, Park City Mountain resort): 1 K Clark (USA) 47.9pts, 2 D Vidal (Fra) 43.0, 3 F Reuteler (Swi) 39.7.
