The Women's
Downhill competition of the
Calgary 1988 Olympics was held at
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 Friday, February 19.
The race was delayed a day due to high winds on Thursday.
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
Maria Walliser
Maria Walliser (born 27 May 1963) is a Swiss former alpine skiing, alpine skier.
Career
Walliser grew up in Mosnang, the daughter of a wealthy cattle breeder. She made her World Cup debut in 1980. Together with her fellow Swiss Erika Hess, Miche ...
of Switzerland, while teammate
Michela Figini
Michela Figini (born 7 April 1966) is a former World Cup alpine ski racer from Switzerland. She is an Olympic, World Cup and world champion.
Career
Figini made her World Cup debut at age 16 in January 1983 and won the downhill at the 1984 Win ...
was the defending Olympic and
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 and led the
current season.
West Germany's
Marina Kiehl
Marina Kiehl (born 12 January 1965) is a former World Cup alpine ski racer from Germany.
Career
Competing for West Germany in the 1980s, Kiehl gained her first World Cup victory in a Super-G competition in March 1984 in Quebec. She won season t ...
won the gold medal,
Brigitte Oertli
Brigitte Oertli (born 10 June 1962) is a former Swiss alpine skier.
Career
During her career she has achieved 31 results among the top 3 in the World Cup. In Alpine skiing at the 1988 Winter Olympics, Oertli won silver medals in Downhill and Al ...
of Switzerland took silver, and
Karen Percy
Karen Percy Lowe (born October 10, 1966) is a Canadian former alpine skier. She was born in Banff, Alberta. She won two bronze medals in skiing at the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics, where she was Canada's flag bearer in the closing ceremony. Un ...
of Canada was the bronze medalist; Walliser was fourth and Figini finished ninth.
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 . Kiehl's winning time was 85.86 seconds, yielding an average speed of , with an average vertical descent rate of .
Results
The race was started at 10:00
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 ...
−7). At the starting gate, the skies were partly cloudy, 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 - Women's downhill
Women's downhill
Alp
Oly