The Women's downhill competition of the Innsbruck 1976 Olympics was held at

Axamer Lizum Axamer Lizum is a village and ski resort in Tyrol, Austria, located southwest of the state capital Innsbruck. Known for its high-altitude terrain and long-lasting seasonal snow, Axamer Lizum features a variety of pistes and freeriding areas. ...

on Sunday, 8 February. 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

Annemarie Moser-Pröll Annemarie Moser-Pröll (born 27 March 1953) is a former World Cup alpine ski racer from Austria. Born in Kleinarl, Salzburg, she was the most successful female alpine ski racer during the 1970s, with an all-time women's record of six overall ...

of Austria, who was also 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, but spent this year away from racing to care for her ailing father; Switzerland's

Bernadette Zurbriggen Bernadette Zurbriggen (born 30 August 1956) is a former Swiss alpine skier. Career During her career she has achieved 18 results among the top 3 in the World Cup. In the 1970s, Zurbriggen won seven World Cup races: five in Downhill, one in Gia ...

led the current season. Defending Olympic champion

Marie-Theres Nadig Marie-Thérèse Nadig (born 8 March 1954) is a retired Swiss alpine skier. Biography Aged 17, she won gold medals in the downhill and giant slalom events at the 1972 Winter Olympics. During her career, Nadig won 24 world cup races and had 57 po ...

was entered in the race but did not start.

Rosi Mittermaier Rosa Anna Katharina Mittermaier-Neureuther (; Mittermaier; 5 August 1950 – 4 January 2023) was a German alpine skier. She was the overall World Cup champion in 1976 and a double gold medalist at the 1976 Winter Olympics. Mittermaier compet ...

won the gold medal,

Brigitte Totschnig Brigitte Totschnig (later ''Habersatter'', born 30 August 1954) is a retired Austrian alpine skier. Career She competed at the 1972 and 1976 Winter Olympics and won a silver medal in the downhill in 1976. Totschnig finished seventh in the downhi ...

of Austria took the silver, and

Cindy Nelson Cynthia Lee Nelson (born August 19, 1955) is former World Cup alpine ski racer from the United States. Racing career Born and raised in Lutsen in northeastern Minnesota, Nelson's family ran the local ski area and she was on skis before the ...

of the United States was the bronze medalist. Mittermaier also won the slalom and was the runner-up in the

giant slalom Giant slalom (GS) is an alpine skiing and alpine snowboarding competitive discipline. It involves racing between sets of poles ("gates") spaced at a greater distance from each other than in Slalom skiing, slalom but less than in Super-G. Giant sl ...

. The starting gate was 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 . The course length was and Mittermaier's winning run of 106.16 seconds resulted in an average speed of , with an average vertical descent rate of .

Results

''Sunday, February 8, 1976''
:

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alpine skiing at the 1976 Winter Olympics - Women's downhill Women's downhill Alp Oly Women's downhill