10 Feb 2014

Mayer wins men's downhill in Sochi

11:54 am on 10 February 2014

The Austrian skier Matthias Mayer stormed to victory in the men's Olympic downhill as favourites Bode Miller and Aksel Lund Svindal missed out on a medal.

Mayer, competing in his first Olympics, went one better than his father Helmut who won silver in Super-G at the Calgary Games in 1988.

On one of the most challenging and certainly the longest Olympic downhill course, Mayer beat Italy's Christof Innerhofer by 0.06 seconds with Norway's Kjetil Jansrud third.

World Cup downhill leader Svindal was fourth and Miller, who was bidding for a sixth Olympic medal and second gold, was eighth.