Alpine skiing at the 1968 Winter Olympics – Women's downhill

The Women's Downhill competition of the Grenoble 1968 Olympics was held at Chamrousse on Saturday, 10 February.[1][2]

Women's downhill at the X Olympic Winter Games
Alpine skiing
Venue	Chamrousse
Date	February 10
Competitors	39 from 14 nations
Winning time	1:40.87
Medalists
Olga Pall  Austria Isabelle Mir  France Christl Haas  Austria

Alpine skiing at the 1968 Winter Olympics
Downhill	men	women
Giant slalom	men	women
Slalom	men	women

The defending world champion was Marielle Goitschel of France, who was also the defending World Cup downhill champion and Austria's Olga Pall led the current season.[3][4] Christl Haas of Austria was the defending Olympic champion.

Pall won the gold medal, Isabelle Mir of France took the silver, and Haas was the bronze medalist.[5][6]

The starting gate was at an elevation of 2,252 m (7,388 ft), and the vertical drop was 602 m (1,975 ft).[1] The course length was 2.160 km (1.34 mi) and Pall's winning time of 100.87 seconds resulted in an average speed of 77.089 km/h (47.9 mph), with an average vertical descent rate of 5.968 m/s (19.6 ft/s).

About an hour before the race, eighteen-year-old American Karen Budge was testing her wax on the practice course and narrowly avoided a full collision with a member of the Moroccan men's team, Said Housni, who had been warned once before to stay off the hill. She fell, suffered a dislocated shoulder, and did not start.[5][7]