Alpine skiing at the 1980 Winter Olympics – Men's downhill
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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]
Men's Downhill at the XIII Olympic Winter Games | |||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Venue | Whiteface Mountain Wilmington, New York, U.S. | ||||||||||||
Date | February 14, 1980 | ||||||||||||
Competitors | 47 from 22 nations | ||||||||||||
Winning time | 1:45.50 | ||||||||||||
Medalists | |||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
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 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).