It was an emotional moment with a silver lining as Christof Innerhofer brought home the first medal for Italy in the XXII Winter Olympic Games in the opening round of the alpine skiing programme. A fabulous descent, nearing perfection at the start, which only missed out on being gold by a six hundredth of a minute. Austrian, Matthias Mayer, triumphed in 2'06 "23, with bronze going to the Norwegian Jansrud in 2'06" 33. The results for the rest of the Italian team in the race were seventh place for Peter Fill in 2'06 "72, eleventh for Dominik Paris (2'07" 13) and twelfth place for Werner Heel who finished in 2'07 "16. It's the third medal won in a downhill race by Italy in the history of the Olympic Games, after those of Zeno Colo (gold in Oslo 1952) and Herbert Plank (bronze at Innsbruck 1976).​ 

"It has been a big dream for me to win a medal at the Olympic Games, so I can't really believe it. I don't know what to think, I will need a lot more hours to realise that I won silver. I couldn't be happier."

On his performance: "I really focused well on this race. I risked so much at the top. I thought to myself, 'Come on Chris, you must push harder', so I pushed harder. I thought that if I risked a lot it could go well and it could go badly, but at least I could say after the race that I tried".

Italian PM, Enrico Letta, sent a text message after the race congratulating Italy's NOC President Malagò: "Fantastic achievement in the downhill, congratulations to Christof and the others. Keep it up and long live Italy".​