The Old Men on the Mountains

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Swiss downhiller Didier Cuche, the favorite.

Vancouver, British Columbia

Didier Cuche is an Olympic senior citizen at 35 years years old, so you might assume that his event is curling. But instead of pushing a stone across the ice Saturday, Mr. Cuche will be careening down an icy slope at 80 miles an hour as the gold-medal favorite in the men's downhill competition (if the race isn't postponed by weather).

The Swiss skier is in good— and aging—company. In 1980, the top 12 finishers in the Olympics' downhill event averaged a young 23.6 years. This year's top 12 men's downhill skiers are ancient by comparison: 29.9 years.

"It's become an event that's all about experience," said Phil Mahre, who won silver and gold medals in the slalom in the 1980 and 1984 Olympic Games. "And it's a lot more technical than it's ever been."

Despite its reckless abandon, downhill has always been friendlier to veteran skiers than other Alpine events. The turns in slalom and giant slalom can wear on aging knees in ways that the bomb-and-tuck style of the downhill race does not. So it's not surprising that this year's slalom and giant slalom skiers are nearly 2½ years younger than their downhill teammates.

But changes in the nature of competitive skiing and advances in ski technology are making the downhill race even more of a haven for the veterans of the world's most famous downhill runs. Among these new factors: fewer training runs, chemicals that make the snow harder and faster than ever, and a new generation of dramatically curved slalom skis. It's hardly surprising that the venerable Mr. Cuche is a favorite for the gold. He turned in the fastest training run Wednesday, before the run was canceled for fog. (He was disqualified in Thursday's training run for missing a gate.) He is joined on the list of skiers who are expected to do well by two other relative old-timers, Austrian Michael Walchhofer, who is 34, and American Bode Miller, who is 32. Liechtenstein's Marco Buechel is 38.

Of course, younger skiers have come out of nowhere to shock the Olympics before, most notably American Bill Johnson, who took the downhill gold at age 23 in 1984 in Sarajevo. But downhill skiing is unique among the skiing disciplines in that its courses hardly change from year to year. In slalom, giant slalom and super giant slalom, which is known as SuperG, the course changes depending on how race managers set up the gates through which the athletes ski. In downhill, skiers race down essentially the same course year after year, whether at Colorado's Beaver Creek or Vail resorts, or Europe's legendary downhill runs, such as Wengen, Switzerland, or Kitzbuhel, Austria.

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Austrian Michael Walchhofer, above, and Bode Miller atop the downhill course on Wednesday, below.

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The more times they race down a course, the more familiar they become with what skiers call the "line" of the slope, which means the most direct route from the top to the bottom. Skiers with the greatest familiarity of the line know the high-speed adjustments they need to make as they approach the treacherous turns and jumps of a typical race.

"There is no way to plan for these big events other than to have been there before," said Mr. Miller. "If I come in and race hard, it comes down to whether I can make the tactical decisions to make it down error-free."

Making matters more challenging for young downhillers is the now-common practice of injecting a course with water to ensure that the slope remains consistent for every competitor throughout a race day. With that consistency come icy-hard and lightning-fast conditions that put a premium on split-second decisions made by instinct and experience. "It's the judgment factor," said John McMurtry, the former Alpine coach for the U.S. ski team. "And it takes years to develop that judgment."

Especially now. Mr. Mahre said that when he was on the World Cup circuit, organizers would allow competitors to take four or five practice runs on the course before the actual races. Now, partly because the World Cup circuit includes more events, training runs have been cut back to just one or two for each downhill race.

"Used to be you could get 15 or 20 runs on a course within a few years," Mr. Mahre said. "Now it'll take you 10 years to get up to that level."

For many younger skiers, though, those years aren't wasted. Instead, they are using the sharp reflexes and fast-twitch muscles of their youth to win slalom and giant slalom events, which require a series of jagged turns through gates. As those physical advantages begin to deteriorate in their mid-to-late 20s, the aging skiers begin to gravitate toward the speed events, like downhill.

Since the 1990s, slalom skiers have used skis that are shaped like a parabolic arc—skinny in the middle and widening toward the tips. While the shape makes it easier to carve out the quick turns of a slalom, the skis put tremendous torque on the knees and lower legs, body parts which only hurt more as skiers age.

"I've seen people blow out their tibia and fibulas just by going through a turn," said Picabo Street, the silver medalist in the Olympic downhill in 1994.

American skier Bode Miller first broke onto the World Cup skiing circuit in 1997 as a top slalom racer out of New Hampshire. His first World Cup downhill victory, however, didn't come until 2004, when he was 27 years old. This year, the downhill and SuperG are considered his best shots at the podium, though he may also be a contender in the downhill-slalom combination event known as Super Combined.

Brandon Dyksterhouse, who grew up racing with Mr. Miller and is now the head Alpine coach at the Green Mountain Valley School in Vermont, which trains some of the country's best young skiers, said Mr. Miller is lucky to have made it into this stage of his career without having blown himself into pieces. "If you can hang in without breaking your body apart, there's no reason you can't stay competitive until you're 40."

Write to Matthew Futterman at matthew.futterman@wsj.com

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