Alpine skiing at the 1980 Winter Olympics – Men's downhill

Men's Downhill at the XIII Olympic Winter Games
Alpine skiing
Venue	Whiteface Mountain Wilmington, New York, U.S.
Date	February 14, 1980
Competitors	47 from 22 nations
Winning time	1:45.50
Medalists
Leonhard Stock   Austria Peter Wirnsberger   Austria Steve Podborski   Canada
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Men's Downhill
Location	Whiteface Mountain
Vertical	832 m (2,730 ft)
Top elevation	1,313 m (4,308 ft)
Base elevation	481 m (1,578 ft)

The Men's Downhill competition of the 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid was held at Whiteface Mountain on Thursday, February 14. ^{[1] [2] [3]}

The defending world champion was Josef Walcher of Austria, while Switzerland's Peter Müller was the defending World Cup downhill champion and led the 1980 World Cup. ^{[4] [5]} Defending Olympic champion Franz Klammer did not compete; he was not selected to the Austrian Olympic team in 1980. ^[6]

Gold medalist Leonhard Stock was an alternate on the Austrian downhill team, at the Olympics for the slalom. His fast training times earned him a spot on the four-man team, displacing Walcher, the reigning world champion. ^{[7] [8] [9]} All four Austrians in the race finished in the top ten and Müller was fourth.

The course started at an elevation of 1,313 m (4,308 ft) above sea level with a vertical drop of 832 m (2,730 ft) and a length of 3.009 km (1.87 mi). Stock's winning time was 105.50 seconds, yielding an average speed of 102.677 km/h (63.8 mph), with an average vertical descent rate of 7.886 m/s (25.9 ft/s).

Results

The race was started at 11:30 local time, (UTC −5). At the starting gate, the skies were broken overcast and snowing, the temperature was −10.0 °C (14.0 °F), wind speed was 53 km/h (33 mph) and the snow condition was hard packed.

Rank	Bib	Name	Country	Time	Difference
	9	Leonhard Stock	Austria	1:45.50	-
	13	Peter Wirnsberger	Austria	1:46.12	+0.62
	15	Steve Podborski	Canada	1:46.62	+1.12
4	10	Peter Müller	Switzerland	1:46.75	+1.25
5	23	Pete Patterson	United States	1:47.04	+1.54
6	3	Herbert Plank	Italy	1:47.13	+1.63
7	12	Werner Grissmann	Austria	1:47.21	+1.71
8	19	Valeri Tsyganov	Soviet Union	1:47.34	+1.84
9	1	Harti Weirather	Austria	1:47.70	+2.20
10	11	Dave Murray	Canada	1:47.95	+2.45
11	16	Dave Irwin	Canada	1:48.12	+2.62
12	27	Konrad Bartelski	Great Britain	1:48.53	+3.03
13	30	Bohumír Zeman	Czechoslovakia	1:48.65	+3.15
14	25	Phil Mahre	United States	1:48.88	+3.38
15	6	Giuliano Giardini	Italy	1:48.98	+3.48
16	21	Andy Mill	United States	1:49.07	+3.57
17	5	Erik Håker	Norway	1:49.09	+3.59
18	17	Urs Räber	Switzerland	1:49.16	+3.66
19	26	Arnt Erik Dale	Norway	1:49.26	+3.76
20	20	Andreas Wenzel	Liechtenstein	1:49.71	+4.21
21	22	Mikio Katagiri	Japan	1:49.77	+4.27
22	4	Vladimir Makeev	Soviet Union	1:49.87	+4.37
23	2	Michael Veith	West Germany	1:50.00	+4.50
24	7	Erwin Josi	Switzerland	1:50.03	+4.53
25	24	Philippe Pugnat	France	1:50.13	+4.63
26	28	Antony Guss	Australia	1:50.22	+4.72
27	29	Francisco Fernández Ochoa	Spain	1:50.69	+5.19
28	32	Ross Blyth	Great Britain	1:51.12	+5.62
29	31	David Cargill	Great Britain	1:52.02	+6.52
30	33	Alan Stewart	Great Britain	1:53.41	+7.91
31	36	Norberto Quiroga	Argentina	1:54.31	+8.81
32	35	Stuart Blakely	New Zealand	1:55.41	+9.91
33	34	Henri Mollin	Belgium	1:55.83	+10.33
34	37	Didier Lamont	Belgium	1:57.57	+12.07
35	47	Carlos Font	Andorra	1:57.81	+12.31
36	46	Marcelo Martínez	Argentina	1:58.04	+12.54
37	38	Janez Flere	Argentina	1:59.01	+13.51
38	43	Guillermo Giumelli	Argentina	2:00.10	+14.60
39	39	Miguel Font	Andorra	2:02.01	+16.51
40	41	Hong In-gi	South Korea	2:03.08	+17.58
41	45	Arturo Kinch	Costa Rica	2:12.24	+26.74
42	44	Billy Farwig	Bolivia	2:12.66	+27.16
-	40	Patrick Toussaint	Andorra	DNF	-
-	18	Karl Anderson	United States	DNF	-
-	14	Ken Read	Canada	DNF	-
-	8	Toni Bürgler	Switzerland	DNF	-
-	42	Scott Alan Sánchez	Bolivia	DQ	-

Source: ^[1]

References

1. "The Official Report of the XIIIth Olympic Winter Games Lake Placid 1980 - Official Results" (PDF). Lake Placid Organizing Committee. LA84 Foundation. 1980. Retrieved January 3, 2014.
2. "Alpine Skiing at the 1980 Lake Placid Winter Games: Men's Downhill". Sports Reference. Archived from the original on 18 April 2020. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
3. Johnson, William Oscar (February 11, 1980). "The Downhill: Majesty and Madness". Sports Illustrated. (Olympic preview). p. 84.
4. "1979 World Cup standings". FIS. Retrieved January 3, 2014.
5. "1978 World Championships results". FIS. Retrieved January 3, 2014.
6. Anderson, Dave (February 14, 1980). "Klammer Olympic absentee". Palm Beach Post. (New York Times). p. D1.
7. "For Stock, it was an uphill battle". St. Petersburg Independent. (Florida). Associated Press. February 15, 1980. p. 5C.
8. Mizell, Hubert (February 15, 1980). "Unknown Austrian skier Stock suddenly is hero". St. Petersburg Times. (Florida). p. 1C.
9. Johnson, William Oscar (February 25, 1980). "Austria storms the hill". Sports Illustrated. p. 22.

External links

• FIS results