Alpine Skiing At The 1960 Winter Olympics – Women's Downhill
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The Women's downhill competition of the Squaw Valley 1960 Olympics was held at Squaw Valley on Saturday, February 20. The defending
world champion A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game ...
was Lucile Wheeler of Canada, who had retired the previous year; defending Olympic champion Madeleine Berthod of Switzerland did not compete in this event. Nineteen-year-old
Heidi Biebl Heidi Biebl (17 February 1941 – 20 January 2022) was a German alpine skier. Career Biebl won gold medal in the downhill at the 1960 Winter Olympics, just three days after her 19th birthday, becoming the games' youngest gold medal winner. She ...
of
Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
won the gold medal, while
American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...
Penny Pitou was a second behind for the silver; the bronze medalist was Traudl Hecher of
Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...
. The race was run on KT-22, 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
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; the course length was , with a vertical drop of . Biebl's winning time of 97.6 seconds yielded an average speed of , with an average vertical descent rate of .


Helmets

This was the first Olympic downhill in which crash helmets were mandatory, following the race death in 1959 of Canadian
John Semmelink Herman Jan "John" Semmelink (December 17, 1938 – February 7, 1959) was an alpine ski racer from Canada. Personal life Born in Shanghai, China, he was the eldest son of Richard Herman Semmelink and Margaretha Catharina Visser of the Netherlands ...
at
Garmisch Garmisch-Partenkirchen (; ) is an Alpine ski town in Bavaria, southern Germany. It is the seat of government of the district of Garmisch-Partenkirchen (abbreviated ''GAP''), in the Oberbayern region, which borders Austria. Nearby is Ger ...
,
West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...
. During his final race, Semmelink wore a leather helmet, which was more protection than many racers used at the time. The U.S. Ski Team first wore crash helmets at 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 ...
, but most of the Europeans went without.


Results

''Saturday, February 20, 1960''
The race was started at 10:00 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 ...
−8). :


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alpine skiing at the 1960 Winter Olympics - Women's downhill Women's downhill Oly Alp