Beat Feuz wins Olympic downhill, completes career collection

BEIJING (AP) — Beat Feuz finally has the one major victory missing from his overflowing collection of downhill achievements: Olympic gold.

The diminutive Swiss skier mastered a tricky course that had never been raced before by the world’s best and finished a slim 0.10 seconds ahead of 41-year-old Johan Clarey of France on Monday.

Clarey became the oldest man to win an Olympic medal in Alpine skiing. The previous oldest was Bode Miller, who was 36 when he took the bronze in super-G in 2014.

Two-time Olympic champion Matthias Mayer of Austria was 0.16 behind and added a bronze medal to his career haul.

Feuz won a silver medal in super-G and bronze in downhill at the 2018 Olympics and is the four-time reigning World Cup downhill champion. He also won the downhill world title in 2017 and holds the career record of 45 World Cup podium finishes in the sport's fastest discipline.

The 5-foot-8 (1.72-meter) Feuz is second in this season’s downhill standings.

It’s been a quite a few weeks for Feuz: His second daughter was born, he won the most prestigious World Cup downhill in Kitzbühel, Austria, and now he has an Olympic gold medal.

When he reached the finish, Feuz flipped his ski into the air then caught it in one swift motion — a tribute to former Swiss downhiller Didier Cuche, who used to celebrate that way.

Aleksander Aamodt Kilde of Norway, a popular pick to win because he leads the World Cup downhill standings and was fastest in Friday’s training session, finished fifth, a half-second behind Fuez.

The race was originally scheduled for Sunday but was postponed a day because of strong winds on The Rock Course.

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AP Sports Writer Andrew Dampf and AP National Writer Howard Fendrich contributed to this report.

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