Didier Defago broke a two-decade Swiss drought with gold in the Olympic downhill Monday and American Bode Miller broke his personal streak of major championship failures by taking the bronze.
Defago sped down the Dave Murray course in 1 minute, 54.31 seconds to match countryman Pirmin Zurbriggen’s feat in the downhill at the 1988 Calgary Games – the last time a Swiss man had won an Olympic medal in any Alpine event.
Defago had never won a medal at an Olympics or world championship, but last year he won the two most prestigious downhills of the World Cup season on back-to-back weekends in Wengen, Switzerland, and Kitzbuehel, Austria.
(Continue reading the AP article at NPR.org)