| Men's downhill at the XI Olympic Winter Games | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | |||||||||||||
| Venue | Mount Eniwa Hokkaido,Japan | ||||||||||||
| Date | February 7, 1972 | ||||||||||||
| Competitors | 55 from 20 nations | ||||||||||||
| Winning time | 1:51.43 | ||||||||||||
| Medalists | |||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
| Alpine skiing at the 1972 Winter Olympics | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
| Downhill | men | women |
| Giant slalom | men | women |
| Slalom | men | women |
| Men's Downhill | |
|---|---|
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| Location | Mount Eniwa |
| Vertical | 772 m (2,533 ft) |
| Top elevation | 1,126 m (3,694 ft) |
| Base elevation | 354 m (1,161 ft) |
| Longest run | 2.640 km (1.64 mi) |
TheMen'sDownhill competition of theSapporo 1972 Olympics was held atMount Eniwa on Monday, February 7.[1][2]
The defendingworld champion wasBernhard Russi of Switzerland, who was also the defendingWorld Cup downhill champion, and Austria'sKarl Schranz led thecurrent season.[3][4] Schranz was classified as a professional and banned from the Olympics.[5][6]
Russi won the gold medal, teammateRoland Collombin took the silver, andHeini Messner of Austria won the bronze.[7][8]
The starting gate was at anelevation of 1,126 m (3,694 ft) abovesea level, with a vertical drop of 772 m (2,533 ft).[1] The course length was 2.640 km (1.64 mi) and Russi's winning run of 111.43 seconds resulted in an average speed of 85.291 km/h (53.0 mph), with an average vertical descent rate of 6.928 m/s (22.7 ft/s).
The race started at 13:30JST(UTC+9) under clear skies, with an air temperature of −7 °C (19 °F).
