Downhill Climb

Usually in ski racing, the important numbers are first, second and third.

Wednesday, though, at the women’s Olympic downhill, the stories were first, eighth and 28th.

FIRST: Michaela Dorfmeister won Austria’s first Alpine gold of these Games -- and wasn’t it about time? -- by racing the race of her life when she needed it most.

Her winning time was 1 minute 56.49 seconds. Martina Schild of Switzerland won the silver, with Anja Paerson of Sweden earning bronze.

Dorfmeister, 32, can retire now, at the end of this season, after having won everything in ski racing, including an Olympic gold.

“I didn’t sleep for two days because I was under so much pressure,” she said.

EIGHTH: American Lindsey Kildow, fighting fear and pain in her back, finished in this spot. This is where hoping-for-a-medal met just-glad-to-be-alive, two days after a horrific training run crash left her for finished.

“It’s definitely weird, going from the hospital bed to the start gate,” Kildow said.

TWENTY-EIGHTH: Carole Montillet-Carles of France, the defending Olympic downhill champion, ended up here, 4.54 seconds off the lead.

She had face-planted in Monday’s training run, moments before Kildow joined her with an airlift off the mountain.

Montillet-Carles’ face was bruised and swollen -- like that of the lopsided loser in a prizefight. In a valiant effort to defend her title, though, Montillet-Carles had her left eye taped open so she could maneuver through the flat light at 60 mph.

“It was my decision,” she said of racing. “I could not have stayed in my room and watched the race.”

FIRST: Imagine being one of the greatest Austrian skiers and retiring without an Olympic gold. That was the pressure Dorfmeister was up against.

The Alpine events started Sunday, and on Wednesday, Austria was still looking for its first gold medal.

Michael Walchhofer thought he had Sunday’s downhill won before a Frenchman stole it from the 30th start spot. Tuesday night, Benjamin Raich was 100 yards or so from a possible gold in combined before he skied off course and handed gold to American Ted Ligety.

Dorfmeister?

This would be her third, and last, Olympics. She is a former World Cup and world champion, but her clock was ticking.

“The elusive medal was probably the thing that has kept me skiing,” she said.

EIGHTH: No way Kildow was going to ski. She had suffered no major injuries but was so banged up that the U.S. ski team listed her Tuesday as an entrant as a courtesy, to show how tough she was and to buy 24 hours.

Thomas Vonn, a former ski racer and Kildow’s boyfriend, said the chance of her racing was slim.

“For me to be sitting here right now is incredible,” Vonn said. “I thought I’d be back in the U.S., dealing with surgery decisions.”

Kildow caught an edge in her training-run crash, on the bumpy rolls, and lost her memory for about 10 minutes. Her wreck was so gruesome that Renate Goetschl of Austria turned away when the crash was replayed on the jumbo screen in the finish area.

Kildow, 21, hurt in places she didn’t know she had. The crash burned holes in her racing suit and left marks on her back.

She took anti-inflammatory medicine to dull the pain in her back but feared taking anything stronger -- and it had nothing to do with anti-doping agencies.

“You can’t really take much more,” she said. “You can’t make your body numb, where you can’t do anything. You just try to take as much pain away as you can.”

Kildow was brave enough to jump in the starting gate, wearing bib No. 31.

She also was scared, “a little bit.”

Julia Mancuso, her teammate and racing rival since childhood, skied down from the 28th starting spot and finished seventh, nipping Kildow by .07 of a second.

Afterward, Mancuso said she hadn’t known much about Kildow’s condition.

“I just heard [from others],” Mancuso said. “It seemed like she was in a lot of pain but did a really good job, I think, of skiing.”

Kildow doesn’t like losing to Mancuso, and vice versa, but suddenly eighth place seemed pretty good.

“For what I’ve been through, I’m happy with that,” Kildow said. “I’m just happy to be here. Thank God for keeping me healthy, or healthy enough to race.”

TWENTY-EIGHTH: Montillet-Carles won the Olympic downhill at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games. She was 28 at the time, and her victory was a stunner, it being her first downhill victory in 10 years on the World Cup circuit. Months before, her friend and teammate Regine Cavagnoud was killed in a training accident after skiing into a German coach.

She was Carole Montillet then, before she married Olivier Carles and extended her name with a hyphen. She dedicated her Olympic victory at Salt Lake City to Cavagnoud.

Flash forward four years, to this week, when it was Montillet-Carles who smashed face-first into the hard snow during a training run. She almost never crashes -- not in a race since December 2002.

Her goggles saved her from further damage, but damage was done.

“I have no regrets,” she said in the finish area, “although I am in pain everywhere.”

FIRST: Dorfmeister nearly won a gold medal, in super-giant slalom, at Nagano in 1998. She skied out of the 18th spot and posted what could have been the winning time of 1:18.03.

One skier in the competition, though, skied the tiniest bit faster.

Racing in her Tiger helmet, with red pigtails flowing, an American from Idaho crossed the line at 1:18.02.

Picabo Street beat Dorfmeister for the gold.

EIGHTH: Why did Kildow go through with it? Wasn’t she risking a lot? Should she not have tried to rest in order to compete in Friday’s combined event, in which she would be a medal favorite?

What makes ski racers take these chances?

“I wanted to do it even if I wasn’t going to do well,” Kildow said. “You know, because, I’ve got to try. I’ve worked so hard to be here, you can’t just give up. You have to try as much as you can.”

Kildow, if she can beat back the pain, will try to compete in the combined.

“I wanted to get a medal, but I still have more chances,” she told reporters on her way out of the finish area. “Don’t give up on me yet.”

TWENTY-EIGHTH: Someone from a chairlift looked down at Montillet-Carles and yelled, “I love you,” to which Montillet-Carles said she replied, “Have you seen my face?”

It wasn’t easy to look at -- yet she raced.

Four years ago, she won the downhill. Wednesday, finishing was all that mattered.

*

WOMEN’S DOWNHILL

GOLD

* Michaela Dorfmeister, Austria

SILVER

* Martina Schild, Switzerland

BRONZE

* Anja Paerson, Sweden