McGrath had the lead by a full 59 hundredths of a second before the second run in Bormio, but couldn't cope with the pressure for the gold.
There wasn't even a medal after the 25-year-old straddled a gate. In the middle of the slope, he threw his poles away, unbuckled his skis and stormed off towards the forest, where he lay down in the snow in disappointment after the miss. There he lay and stared up at the sky.
A couple of hours later he said:
"Emotions take over. I thought I would have time to myself, but it was photographers who found me. Emotions come out in a physical way," he told the newspaper VG afterwards.
The Norwegian has had a tough Olympics and recently shared in an emotional Instagram post that he lost his grandfather during the Olympic opening ceremony.
"It's the toughest day in sport in my life. When it's that tough at home and on the slopes, it's a lot," McGrath said.
The Norwegian describes an emptiness and said he is open to getting help to mentally deal with what he has been experiencing in recent days.
"When you see the Olympic rings and know that the next time I get another chance, I'll be 29 years old, not 25... it hurts," he said.
The gold went instead to Switzerland's Loic Meillard. He won by 0.35 seconds over Austria's Fabio Gstrein. Henrik Kristoffersen took the bronze and ensured that it was at least a Norwegian medal.
Kristoffer Jakobsen crashed out in the first run. Fabian Ax Swartz finished in 14th place, 2.97 seconds behind Meillard.
