Alpine skiing at the 1976 Winter Olympics – Men's downhill

The Men's Downhill competition of the 1976 Winter Olympics at Innsbruck, Austria, was held at Patscherkofel on Thursday, 5 February,  on the same course as in 1964.

The defending world champion was David Zwilling of Austria, who had recently retired; Bernhard Russi of Switzerland was the defending Olympic champion. Franz Klammer of Austria was the defending World Cup downhill champion and led the current season; he had also won the pre-Olympic World Cup downhill at Patcherkofel a year earlier in January 1975.

Klammer won the gold medal, Russi took the silver, and Herbert Plank of Italy was the bronze medalist.

The starting gate was at an elevation of 1950 m above sea level, with a vertical drop of 870 m. The course length was 3.020 km and Klammer's famous winning run resulted in an average speed of 102.828 km/h, with an average vertical descent rate of 8.2285 m/s, significantly faster than previous Olympic downhills. At age 22, the win elevated him to an international celebrity and he was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

Egon Zimmermann, also of Austria, took the gold medal a dozen years earlier in the 1964 Olympic downhill. His winning time was 2:18.16, more than a half-minute behind Klammer's.

Through 2022, no Olympic men's downhill champion has repeated; Russi remains the sole defender to medal.

Results

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