The Men's downhill competition of the Calgary 1988 Olympics was held at the newly-developed

Nakiska Nakiska is a ski resort in western Canada, in the Kananaskis Country region of the province of Alberta. It is located from Calgary, west on Highway 1 (Trans-Canada Highway) and south on Highway 40 (Kananaskis Trail). "Nakiska" is a Cree word me ...

on Mount Allan on Monday, February 15. The reigning

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 Peter Müller, while all-around

Pirmin Zurbriggen Pirmin Zurbriggen (born 4 February 1963) is a former FIS Alpine Ski World Cup, World Cup Alpine skiing, alpine ski racer from Switzerland. One of the most successful ski racers ever, he won the overall World Cup title four times, an Alpine skiing ...

was the defending

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the name is ...

downhill champion, led the current season, and was a medal threat in all five alpine events. Defending

Olympic Olympic or Olympics may refer to Sports Competitions * Olympic Games, international multi-sport event held since 1896 ** Summer Olympic Games ** Winter Olympic Games * Ancient Olympic Games, ancient multi-sport event held in Olympia, Greece bet ...

champion Bill Johnson did not make the

U.S. Olympic team The United States of America has sent athletes to every celebration of the modern Olympic Games with the exception of the 1980 Summer Olympics, during which it led a boycott in protest of the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. The United ...

; this was the third of four consecutive Olympics without the defending champion in the field. The race was postponed a day due to winds that gusted to at the exposed summit; Zurbriggen took the gold and Müller the silver, a half-second behind. More than a second behind the runner-up was bronze medalist

Franck Piccard Franck Piccard (born 17 September 1964) is a French former Alpine skier. A native of Les Saisies, Piccard won a total of four Alpine Skiing World Cup races. At the 1988 Olympics in Calgary he won a gold medal in the Super-G competition (th ...

Leonhard Stock Leonhard Stock (born 14 March 1958) is a former World Cup alpine ski racer from Austria. Career Stock earned his first World Cup points at age 18 in January 1977. At the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, Stock was originally an alternate fo ...

, the

1980 Events January * January 4 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter proclaims a United States grain embargo against the Soviet Union, grain embargo against the USSR with the support of the European Commission. * January 6 – Global Positioning Sys ...

champion, was fourth, but nearly two seconds behind Zurbriggen. 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 course length of . Zurbriggen's winning time of 119.63 seconds yielded an average speed of , with an average vertical descent rate of .

Results

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 ...

−7). At the starting gate, the skies were overcast, the temperature was , and the snow condition was hard; the temperature at the finish was . :

References

External links

FIS results
{{DEFAULTSORT:Alpine skiing at the 1988 Winter Olympics - Men's downhill Men's downhill

Winter Olympics The Winter Olympic Games (), also known as the Winter Olympics, is a major international multi-sport event held once every four years for sports practiced on snow and ice. The first Winter Olympic Games, the 1924 Winter Olympics, were held i ...