The women's downhill event of the

1956 Winter Olympics The 1956 Winter Olympics, officially known as the VII Olympic Winter Games () and commonly known as Cortina d'Ampezzo 1956 ( or ), were a multi-sport event held in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, from 26 January to 5 February 1956. Cortina, which ...

Cortina d'Ampezzo Cortina d'Ampezzo (; , ; historical ) sometimes abbreviated to simply Cortina, is a town and ''comune'' in the heart of the southern (Dolomites, Dolomitic) Alps in the province of Belluno, in the Veneto region of Northern Italy. Situated on the ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

, was held on Mt. Tofana on Wednesday, 1 February. The

Swiss Swiss most commonly refers to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Swiss may also refer to: Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina * Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses * Swiss Café, an old café located ...

took the top two spots as Madeleine Berthod won the gold and

Frieda Dänzer Frieda Dänzer (16 November 1930 – 21 January 2015) was a Swiss Alpine skier, successful in the second half of the 1950s. At the 1956 Winter Olympics, she won silver in the downhill event. At Bad Gastein in 1958, she became world champion in ...

took the silver; Lucile Wheeler of

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

was the bronze medalist. Forty-four women from sixteen countries finished the race.Comitato Olimpico Nazionale Italiano (1956), p. 596Comitato Olimpico Nazionale Italiano (1956)
p. 596–597 The race was held on the ''Canalone'' piste, with a starting

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 ; the course length was . Berthoud's winning time of 100.7 seconds yielded an average speed of , with an average vertical descent rate of .

Results

''Wednesday, 1 February 1956''
The race was started at 11:30 local time, (

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 ...

+1). At the starting gate, the skies were clear, the temperature was , and the snow condition was hard. Source:

Notes

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Alpine skiing at the 1956 Winter Olympics - Ladies' downhill Women's alpine skiing at the 1956 Winter Olympics Alp Oly

Results

See also

Notes

References