2022 Winter Olympics: Switzerland's Beat Feuz takes men's downhill gold

The Swiss racer clocked 1min 42.69sec, finishing 0.10sec ahead of 41-year-old Frenchman Johan Clarey, while Austrian Matthias Mayer claimed a third Olympic medal in three Games with bronze. Clarey became the oldest alpine skiing medallist in Olympic history. Pre-race favourite Aleksander Aamodt Kilde of Norway finished fifth, completing a miserable day for skiing's golden couple after his American girlfriend Mikaela Shiffrin slid out of the women's giant slalom earlier.

An elated Feuz whooped in the finish area after he saw the green light signifying he had taken the lead. He sent a ski twirling skywards, to the delight of a few hundred spectators made up mainly of volunteers and team members. "I just don't have the words to describe my feelings today," said Feuz after he was confirmed as gold medallist in skiing's most prestigious Olympic event.

Feuz, who won downhill bronze four years ago at the Pyeongchang Games, and 2014 champion Mayer became just the eighth and ninth skiers to win multiple Olympic medals in the downhill. In a race postponed from Sunday because of high winds, skiers cascaded down the "Rock" piste with a vertical drop of 890 metres (2,920 feet), quickly reached motorway-cruising speeds of 140 kilometres per hour (87 miles per hour). They soared in excess of 40 metres off some of the five jumps that punctuate a rolling man-made course.

A rip-roaring, snaky upper section that left racers in no doubt about what awaited them. Arms and poles flailed as skiers tried desperately to maintain equilibrium. There was early drama as Germany's Dominik Schwaiger lost a ski in a crash, collided with the safety netting and came to a halt in the middle of the piste, writhing in pain with what appeared to be a nastily