American Wins the Downhill in Olympic Upset

Tommy Moe of Palmer, Alaska, became only the third American male ever to win an Olympic gold medal in Alpine skiing on Sunday when he defeated, in dramatic fashion, local favorite Kjetil Andre Aamodt of Norway to win the downhill before an estimated crowd of 40,000 at Kvitfjell, Norway.

Moe succeeded where Olympic officials had failed, turning attention to the Lillehammer Games and away from the Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan situation.

“I didn’t even have any thoughts in my mind that I was going to win,” said Moe, who won by 0.04 of a second over Aamodt in the closest Alpine race in Olympic history. “I just figured, ‘Hey, I’ll ski the best I can.’ ”

In other developments:

* First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton was late getting to the slopes and missed Moe’s medal-winning run, but she and daughter Chelsea were in attendance later in the day when the U.S. hockey team rallied from a two-goal third-period deficit to achieve a 4-4 tie against France.

* Norwegians at the Viking Hall celebrated a world-record-setting gold medal performance by countryman Johann Olav Koss, who won easily in the 5,000-meter speedskating event.

* Kerrigan, among the favorites in women’s figure skating, issued a statement regarding the decision Saturday by U.S. officials to allow Harding to compete in the Games despite Harding’s admission that she knew about the Jan. 6 attack on Kerrigan well before she reported it to authorities.

“The matter has been resolved,” Kerrigan said in the statement, which did not mention Harding by name. “Regardless of my opinion on the ruling, the Olympics have begun and it’s time to skate.”

Moe silenced a mountain full of clanging cowbells with his victory over Aamodt, the world’s top skier. Moe won with a time of 1 minute, 45.75 seconds.

Aamodt, skiing from the sixth position, had taken the lead from Luxembourg’s Marc Girardelli, much to the delight of fans who cheered wildly and waved Norwegian flags.

But the euphoria was short-lived as Moe, skiing right after Aamodt, stunned the crowd with the finest race of his career. Although he was the world’s ninth-ranked downhill skier entering the Lillehammer Games, Moe had never before won an international race.

Moe earned the gold 10 years after Americans Bill Johnson and Phil Mahre won the downhill and the slalom, respectively, at the 1984 Sarajevo Games. Johnson, Mahre and Moe are the only American men to have earned Olympic gold medals in Alpine skiing.