It was a tense day out at the Yanqing National Alpine Skiing Centre for the men’s Super-G finals, with no fewer than 13 racers failing to finish on a lightning-fast course.

Matthias Mayer, now a four-time Olympic medallist who took the bronze medal in yesterday’s downhill event, had to recover from a hiccup at the start to move into first place in the field – a position the defending Super-G champion from PyeongChang 2018 never looked likely to surrender.

Skiing at blinding speeds, Mayer – whose father Helmut took silver in the Super-G event at Calgary 1988 – made up time the whole way down before coming across the line in a time of 1:19.94.

It was good enough to take over first place.

«I tried to push hard, really hard. I saw [Aleksander Aamodt] Kilde’s run on TV at the start and it was really good, so I knew that I had to go all-in. I tried to push hard to the last gate, and it was good,» said Mayer.

«That’s such a big success, I can’t imagine right now,» he added about the massive distinction of becoming the first male skier to win three Olympic gold medals in successive Games.

The very next man up – USA’s Ryan Cochran-Siegle – immediately threatened the Austrian’s hard-earned lead and only just missed out on overtaking him by the tiny matter of .04 of a second (1:19.98).

Cochran-Siegle grabs silver for USA
Just the other side of that fraction of a second and Cochran-Siegle – a surprise member of the podium trio – might have become the first American man to ever win Olympic gold in the Super-G Alpine event.

His mother, Barbara Cochran, won the women’s slalom gold in Sapporo in 1972.

«I’ve heard a lot of advice over the years from my mom that I’ve been able to channel that and it added up to today,» Cochran-Siegle said. «I came out with risk and aggression and channelled my good skiing inside myself too. And all that together ended up…a pretty cool day.»

Instead the Team USA man had to be content with a silver medal in just his second go-round at the Olympic Games.

Rounding out the podium was Aleksander Aamodt Kilde of Norway, whose time of 1:20.36 was enough for bronze. The veteran skier only just recovered from a massive knee injury to take part in these Beijing Games.

«My plan when I went into the race was just ski the way I can, ski the way I’ve done the whole season,» said the Norwegian. «I managed really well. It was nice. I lost a little bit of my speed on the lower part when I lost about half a second, but all in all I’m happy.»

Kilde on Shiffrin: Why «we can make each other better»

Among the pre-event favourites, Beat Feuz of Switzerland missed a gate early and squandered his chance to win a double gold in both the downhill (which he won last night) and the Super-G here in Beijing.

Marco Odermatt of Switzerland also failed to finish the race.

The next men’s Alpine skiing event takes place on 10 February with the combined slalom event.

Men’s alpine skiing Super-G

1 Matthias Mayer (AUT) 1:19.94
2 Ryan Cochran-Siegle (USA) 1:19.98
3 Aleksander Aamodt Kilde (NOR) 1:19.98