Winter Olympics: ‘You never know in downhill’ but amazing first day of Alpine shows field has been blown wide open

“You can be one second behind and you don’t know why.” And there, in eleven words, you have the beauty of alpine skiing, perfectly summarised by Johan Clarey. Ad/> Clarey, 41 (yes, FORTY-ONE), became the oldest man ever to win an alpine Olympic medal with his thrilling silver in the men’s downhill on Monday. /> Beijing 2022'You never know in downhill' — Clarey on his incredible silver medal2 HOURS AGO Clarey had never won a World Cup race In his career.

He had never won an Olympic medal. He had just one World Championship medal to his name in a career that began in earnest all the way back in 2006. It is an absolutely remarkable story and while speaking to Eurosport expert Finlay Mickel, whom he used to train with and race against, Clarey admitted it hadn’t quite sunk in.

“It feels great, was just the best day of my career,” he told Mickel in the Eurosport Cube. /> “I saw some athletes earlier who had problems at the beginning of the last split and also in the first section, “But it helped me a lot both with my training runs and the TV. I felt really great before starting.

I felt calm and ready to attack the slope like never before. “It went perfectly for me today.” He wasn’t kidding. He was only 0.10s off gold medal winner Beat Feuz of Switzerland, Clarey’s run could hardly have gone better.

“I just tried to cut the edges as clean as I could.” Clarey added when talking about his tactics going into the run, with Mickel pointing out he really excelled in the top section. “You had to drift a little because at full speed you would have missed the gate for sure but today I went perfect. On the limits but you have to be on the limits to be fast.

It was my day today. /> «Downhill is not a perfect science. I knew it was a good