Kitzbuhel Downhill

Provisional Results from the Kitzbuhel DH:

1-Michael Walchhoffer (Aut) 1:46.75
2-Marco Buechel (Lie) 1:46.80
3-Daron Rahlves (USA) 1:47.08
4-Bode Miller (USA) 1:47.13
5-Erik Guay (Can) 1:47.43
6-Didier Defago (Sui) 1:47.58
7-Kristian Ghedina (Ita) 1:47.59
14- Marco Sullivan (USA) 1:48.15
20- Scott Macartney (USA) 1:48.49
26-Steve Nyman (USA) 1:48.93
31-Justin Johnson (USA) 1:49.22

First impressions from the scoreboard:

-The race organizers must have moved the start down past the Mausefalle due to bad weather or the recent snow. The winning time should have been closer to 1:56 or 1:57 rather than 1:46. While Daron Rahlves took advantage of a lower start in 2003 to win the race, he was not as fortunate today.

-Michael Walchofer was a mild surprise to win today. I would have given him a better chance to win last week at Wengen since that course is known more as a glider's track. Last week I bet most people would have predicted Walchofer to win at Wengen and Rahlves to win at Kitzbuhel rather than the other way around.

-Daron Rahlves finishing on the podium is an extremely successful day from my perspective, but he is probably feeling a bit unfulfilled. I'm sure he will get over it after he stands on the podium and then hightails it over to the Londoner to serve up a few cocktails to the crowd this evening.

-Bode had a very solid fourth place finish today. Eurosport described his run as being a little out of control, but fast. This downhill finish follows a turnaround slalom performance at Wengen last week, and makes up for the DNF in yesterday's Super-G. He has the opportunity to gain more confidence in slalom tomorrow, and put up a few more overall WC points since the results of the SL will be added to the DH for a "paper" combined.

-The American men overall had five finishers in the points, and the sixth, Justin Johnson, just missed with a 31st place result. Marco Sullivan added to his recent success with a 14th place, and he was followed closely by Scott Macartney in 20th. Following today, I think both Sullivan and Macartney sewed up olympic DH starts to join Daron and Bode. It's possible that Nyman gets to go to Torino to compete for a spot in the DH training runs, but I don't feel that is too likely.

-Kjetil Aamodt did not start today becauase he had to fly back to Norway for personal reasons, according to Eurosport. I hope that everything is OK for him.

-Hermann came in pretty low in the standings and the Austrians only had one finisher in the top seven. So while the Kitzbuhel faithful are celebrating Walchofer's victory, I'm sure there are some disgruntled fans in the crowd who were grumbling that more hometown heroes weren't higher up in the standings.

See you tomorrow for the slalom!!