Alpine skiing at the 1972 Winter Olympics – Men's downhill

The Men's Downhill competition of the Sapporo 1972 Olympics was held at Mount Eniwa on Monday, February 7.

The defending world champion was Bernhard Russi of Switzerland, who was also the defending World Cup downhill champion, and Austria's Karl Schranz led the current season. Schranz was classified as a professional and banned from the Olympics.

Russi won the gold medal, teammate Roland Collombin took the silver, and Heini Messner of Austria won the bronze.

The starting gate was at an elevation of 1126 m above sea level, with a vertical drop of 772 m. The course length was 2.640 km and Russi's winning run of 111.43 seconds resulted in an average speed of 85.291 km/h, with an average vertical descent rate of 6.928 m/s.

Results
The race started at 13:30 JST (UTC+9) under clear skies, with an air temperature of -7 C.
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