Vail’s Chad Fleischer posted the top-US finish at 24th, 4.73 seconds off Hermann Maier’s winning time of 1 minute, 40.60 seconds. Long after Maier and the rest of the favorites had completed their runs, the Americans, relegated to the 20s and 30s for start positions, had to battle high winds and heavy snow that blighted their chances of challenging for the win.

"It was scary up there with all that snow and wind," said Fleischer, sixth in Tuesday’s super-G. "When you get that snow on top like that, it sounds like sand on glass. That’s the worst feeling."

Fleischer and Breckenridge’s Jakub Fiala, 29th at 5.88 seconds back, were the only two to handle the course. With visibility diminished, Daron Rahlves and Casey Puckett both went down hard in spectacular crashes. Rahlves limped down the course with a sore right knee and didn’t finish, while Puckett flipped on the final jump, landing on his head and shoulders yet somehow managing to ski across the line on one ski to finish 35th, 14.28 seconds back.

"I think we all felt some nerves. We thought we were close to a podium. We didn’t get a chance to ski in the front of the start list and the weather wound up like this. It was very hard to see," said Puckett, who laid down a blistering 5th-place run in Thursday’s downhill training to make the US downhill roster.

Puckett, 27, racing in only his second career World Cup-level downhill, was nearly complete with his wild but fast ride when he crashed on the final jump within sight of the thousands of fans packing the grandstands at the bottom of the course.

"I came into the compression right before the jump a little too late. That compression really ate me up. I hit the gate and went over," said Puckett, originally from Crested Butte, CO. "I’m sorry I gave my girlfriend and mom such a scare up there."

Rahlves, from Truckee, CA, was scheduled to go to the Steadman Hawkins Clinic in Vail for a checkup after crashing hard on the second-to-last jump. Rahlves, 25, said visibility was so bad he couldn’t tell where the ground was on the upper section of the course.

"It was horrible. It was really hard to see the line. It was hard to judge where the ground was," said Rahlves, who did a spread eagle off an earlier jump but recovered. He continued to have trouble gaining control when he misjudged a jump and tumbled hard.

"I came into that jump and I thought the take off was a little later than it was, so I was late," Rahlves said, who injured his hip last year. "I landed sooner than I thought I would and I caught an edge and my skis went around. I tried to keep my skis up to protect my hip."

The men’s team will brush themselves off and compete in the men’s combined downhill Monday at Beaver Creek."

— Andrew Hood, Mountain Zone Correspondent