Alpine skiing at the 1960 Winter Olympics – Men's downhill

The Men's downhill competition of the 1960 Winter Olympics was held at Squaw Valley on Monday, February 22. The race was postponed from February 19, due to heavy snow fall.

The downhill race start was at the top of Squaw Peak at an elevation of 2707 m. The course length was 3.095 km, with a vertical drop of 758 m.

Austrian Toni Sailer, the defending FIS Downhill World Champion did not compete as he had previously retired.

Jean Vuarnet, the bronze medalist at the world championships two years earlier, won by a half-second in the only Olympic event of his career. It was the first time an Olympic race was won on metal skis. Vuarnet's winning time of 126.0 seconds yielded an average speed of 88.429 km/h, with an average vertical descent rate of 6.016 m/s.

Helmets
This was the first Olympic downhill in which crash helmets were mandatory, following the race death in 1959 of Canadian John Semmelink at Garmisch, West Germany. During his final race, Semmelink wore a leather helmet, which was more protection than many racers used at the time. The U.S. Ski Team first wore crash helmets at the 1956 Winter Olympics, but most of the Europeans went without.

Results
Monday, February 22, 1960

The race was started at 10:00 local time, (UTC −8).
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