Alpine skiing at the 1960 Winter Olympics – Women's downhill
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Women's downhill competition of the Squaw Valley 1960 Olympics was held at Squaw Valley on Saturday, February 20.[1][2]
| Women's downhill at the VIII Olympic Winter Games | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||||||||
| Venue | Squaw Valley | ||||||||||||
| Date | February 20, 1960 | ||||||||||||
| Competitors | 42 from 14 nations | ||||||||||||
| Winning time | 1:37.6 | ||||||||||||
| Medalists | |||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
| Women's Downhill | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Location | Squaw Valley – KT-22 |
| Vertical | 557 m (1,827 ft) |
| Top elevation | 2,447 m (8,028 ft) |
| Base elevation | 1,894 m (6,214 ft) |
The defending world champion was Lucile Wheeler of Canada,[3] who had retired the previous year; defending Olympic champion Madeleine Berthod of Switzerland did not compete in this event.
Nineteen-year-old Heidi Biebl of Germany won the gold medal, while American Penny Pitou was a second behind for the silver; the bronze medalist was Traudl Hecher of Austria.[4][5]
The race was run on KT-22, with a starting elevation of 2,447 m (8,028 ft) above sea level; the course length was 1.828 km (1.136 mi), with a vertical drop of 553 m (1,814 ft).[1] Biebl's winning time of 97.6 seconds yielded an average speed of 67.426 km/h (41.9 mph), with an average vertical descent rate of 5.666 m/s (18.6 ft/s).
Helmets
This was the first Olympic downhill in which crash helmets were mandatory,[6] following the race death in 1959 of Canadian John Semmelink at Garmisch, West Germany.[7][8] During his final race, Semmelink wore a leather helmet, which was more protection than many racers used at the time.[6] The U.S. Ski Team first wore crash helmets at the 1956 Winter Olympics,[9] but most of the Europeans went without.[6][10]
Results
Saturday, February 20, 1960
The race was started at 10:00 local time, (UTC −8).
- Source:[1]