Thomas Dreßen has missed the first German Olympic medal in downhill since 1964. The 24-year-old from Mittenwald finished fifth on the “Jeongseon Downhill” with a gap of 0.78 seconds to the winner Aksel Lund Svindal from Norway.
For 35-year-old Svindal, it was the second gold medal at winter games after his 2010 Olympic victory in the Super-G, Norway’s first ever gold medal in the alpine supreme discipline. Behind the two-time downhill world champion, the Sochi third place winner Kjetil Jansrud (+0.12) secured a Norwegian one-two victory, while bronze went to world champion Beat Feuz from Switzerland (+0.18).
“By and large, the ride was okay, a cheekier line would have been there. The disappointment is great, I had already planned a medal for myself. But I didn’t sell myself so badly,”said Dreßen, who was missing six tenths of a second on a medal.
With starting number one, Dreßen had set the target time of 1:41.03 minutes on Mount Gariwang, but he was quickly passed by the favourites. He was also the first to start on Tuesday’s combined downhill run and scored the best time. Andreas Sander from Ennepetal also missed a surprise (+1.37) as a good tenth place, Josef Ferstl (Hammer/+2.73) was 25th.
The only German medal winners in the downhill run will thus remain Wolfgang Bartels in third place in 1964 in Innsbruck and Hans-Peter Lanig, who had won silver in Squaw Valley four years earlier.