Men's Downhill at the VIII Olympic Winter Games | |||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
![]() | |||||||||||||
Venue | Squaw Valley | ||||||||||||
Date | February 22, 1960 | ||||||||||||
Competitors | 63 from 21 nations | ||||||||||||
Winning time | 2:06.0 | ||||||||||||
Medalists | |||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
Alpine skiing at the 1960 Winter Olympics | ||
---|---|---|
![]() | ||
Downhill | men | women |
Giant slalom | men | women |
Slalom | men | women |
Men's Downhill | |
---|---|
![]() | |
Location | Squaw Valley Squaw Peak |
Vertical | 758 m (2,487 ft) |
Top elevation | 2,707 m (8,881 ft) |
Base elevation | 1,949 m (6,394 ft) |
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. [1] [2] [3] [4]
The downhill race start was at the top of Squaw Peak at an elevation of 2,707 m (8,881 ft). The course length was 3.095 km (1.923 mi), with a vertical drop of 758 m (2,487 ft). [2]
Austrian Toni Sailer, the defending FIS Downhill World Champion did not compete as he had previously retired. [5]
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. [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] Vuarnet's winning time of 126.0 seconds yielded an average speed of 88.429 km/h (54.9 mph), with an average vertical descent rate of 6.016 m/s (19.7 ft/s).
This was the first Olympic downhill in which crash helmets were mandatory, [11] following the race death in 1959 of Canadian John Semmelink at Garmisch, West Germany. [12] [13] During his final race, Semmelink wore a leather helmet, which was more protection than many racers used at the time. [11] The U.S. Ski Team first wore crash helmets at the 1956 Winter Olympics, [14] but most of the Europeans went without. [11] [15]
Monday, February 22, 1960
The race was started at 10:00 local time, (UTC −8).