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Alpine skiing at the 1976 Winter Olympics – Men's downhill
  Patscherkofel Location in Austria The Men's Downhill competition of the 1976 Winter Olympics at Innsbruck, Austria, was held at Patscherkofel on Thursday, 5 February,[1][2][3] on the same course as in 1964.[4] The defending world champion was David Zwilling of Austria, who had recently retired; Bernhard Russi of Switzerland was the defending Olympic champion. Franz Klammer of Austria was the defending World Cup downhill champion and led the current season;[5][6] he had also won the pre-Olympic World Cup downhill at Patcherkofel a year earlier in January 1975. Klammer won the gold medal, Russi took the silver, and Herbert Plank of Italy was the bronze medalist.[1][2][7] The starting gate was at an elevation of 1,950 m (6,398 ft) above sea level, with a vertical drop of 870 m (2,854 ft).[3] The course length was 3.020 km (1.88 mi) and Klammer's famous winning run resulted in an average speed of 102.828 km/h (63.9 mph), with an average vertical descent rate of 8.2285 m/s (27.0 ft/s), significantly faster than previous Olympic downhills. At age 22, the win elevated him to an international celebrity and he was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated.[7] Egon Zimmermann, also of Austria, took the gold medal a dozen years earlier in the 1964 Olympic downhill. His winning time was 2:18.16, more than a half-minute behind Klammer's. Through 2022, no Olympic men's downhill champion has repeated; Russi remains the sole defender to medal. Results
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