The women's downhill competition of the Sochi 2014 Olympics was held at the

Rosa Khutor Alpine Resort The Rosa Khutor Alpine Resort ( rus, Ро́за Ху́тор, r=Roza Khutor, p=ˈrozə ˈxutər) is an alpine ski resort in Krasnodar Krai, Russia, located at the Aibga Ridge of the Western Caucasus along the Roza Khutor plateau near Krasna ...

near

Krasnaya Polyana Krasnaya Polyana () meaning "Red Meadow" is the name of several inhabited localities in Russia: Modern localities Amur Oblast As of 2012, one rural locality in Amur Oblast bears this name: * Krasnaya Polyana, Amur Oblast, a '' selo'' in Tomsky R ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

, on Wednesday, 12 February. The race was won by

Tina Maze Tina Maze (; born 2 May 1983) is a retired Slovenes, Slovenian FIS Alpine Ski World Cup, World Cup Alpine skiing, alpine ski racer. She is the most successful Slovenian ski racer in history with a career that culminated with two gold medals at th ...

Slovenia Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a country in Central Europe. It borders Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the south and southeast, and a short (46.6 km) coastline within the Adriati ...

and

Dominique Gisin Dominique Gisin (; born 4 June 1985) is a retired World Cup alpine ski racer and Olympic gold medalist from Switzerland. She is the older sister of alpine ski racers Marc and Michelle Gisin. Career Born in Visp in the canton of Valais, Gisin ma ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

, who posted the same time.

Lara Gut Lara Gut-Behrami (; ; born 27 April 1991) is a Swiss World Cup alpine ski racer who competes in all disciplines and specializes in the speed events of downhill and Super-G. She won the gold medal in the super-G event at the 2022 Winter Olymp ...

, also of Switzerland, was a tenth of a second back and took the bronze medal.

Summary

Fabienne Suter Fabienne Suter (born 5 January 1985) is a former World Cup alpine ski racer from Switzerland. Born in Sattel in the canton of Schwyz, she specialized in super-G, giant slalom, and downhill. Career At the 2003 World Championships in St. Mori ...

was the first out of the gate and led until Gisin surpassed her by 0.37 seconds. Immediately after Gisin,

Daniela Merighetti Daniela Merighetti (born 5 July 1981) is a retired World Cup alpine ski racer from Italy. Born in Brescia, Lombardy, she competed in the World Cup, three Winter Olympics, and five World Championships. In the 2010 Winter Olympics, Merighetti comp ...

took a provisional second position, and stayed there until Gut, skiing 18th, replaced her at 0.10 seconds behind Gisin. Maze was the 21st racer out of the gate and led at all the intervals, but finished with exactly the same time as Gisin. The best run after Maze was by

Lotte Smiseth Sejersted Lotte Smiseth Sejersted (born 5 March 1991) is a Norwegian former alpine skier. She won a silver medal at the 2009 Junior World Alpine Skiing Championships in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in the downhill event. She took another two medals at the 2 ...

of Norway, who finished sixth. Defending Olympic champion

Lindsey Vonn Lindsey Caroline Vonn ( ; born October 18, 1984) is an American FIS Alpine Ski World Cup, World Cup Alpine skiing, alpine ski racer. She won four World Cup overall championships – third amongst female skiers to Annemarie Moser-Pröll and Mika ...

did not participate due to a knee injury, and the other defending medalists,

Julia Mancuso Marie Mancuso (born March 9, 1984) is an American retired World Cup alpine ski racer, Olympic gold medalist and podcast host. She won the giant slalom at the 2006 Winter Olympics, and was the silver medalist in both downhill and combined i ...

and

Elisabeth Görgl Elisabeth Görgl (born 20 February 1981) is a retired World Cup alpine ski racer from Austria. Born in Bruck an der Mur, Styria, Görgl made her World Cup debut in March 2000 and has reached World Cup podiums in all five alpine disciplines, wi ...

, finished outside the podium. It was the first time any Olympic alpine event has ended in a tie for the gold. Maze also won the first-ever gold medal for Slovenia at the Winter Olympics (since

1992 1992 was designated as International Space Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 – Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt replaces Javier Pérez de Cuéllar of Peru as United Nations Secretary-General. * January 6 ** The Republ ...

), while Gisin and Gut both won their first Olympic medals. The course started at an

elevation The elevation of a geographic location (geography), ''location'' is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational equipotenti ...

of above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an mean, average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal Body of water, bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical ...

with a vertical drop of and a length of . The winning time of 101.57 seconds yielded an average course speed of , with an average vertical descent rate of .

Results

''Wednesday, 12 February 2014'' The race was started at 11:00

local time Local time is the time observed in a specific locality. There is no canonical definition. Originally it was mean solar time, but since the introduction of time zones it is generally the time as determined by the time zone in effect, with daylight s ...

, (

UTC Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the primary time standard globally used to regulate clocks and time. It establishes a reference for the current time, forming the basis for civil time and time zones. UTC facilitates international communica ...

+4). At the starting gate, the skies were partly cloudy, the temperature was , and the snow condition was hard. The temperature at the finish was .Final Results
/ref> Six racers did not finish;

Tina Weirather Christina Weirather (born 24 May 1989) is a retired Liechtensteiner World Cup alpine ski racer. She won a bronze medal in Super-G for Liechtenstein at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang. Racing career Weirather made her World Cup debut ...

did not start due to a season-ending injury during a training run on the course.

References

External links

FIS-Ski.com
– 2014 Winter Olympics – Women's Downhill
– 2014 Winter Olympics – Women's Super G--> {{DEFAULTSORT:Alpine skiing at the 2014 Winter Olympics - Women's downhill Downhill