Alpine skiing at the 1976 Winter Olympics – Men's downhill

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]

Men's downhill at the XII Olympic Winter Games
Alpine skiing
Venue	Patscherkofel Tyrol, Austria
Date	5 February 1976
Competitors	74 from 27 nations
Winning time	1:45.73
Medalists
Franz Klammer  Austria Bernhard Russi  Switzerland Herbert Plank  Italy

Alpine skiing at the 1976 Winter Olympics
Downhill	men	women
Giant slalom	men	women
Slalom	men	women

Men's Downhill
Location	Patscherkofel
Vertical	870 m (2,854 ft)
Top elevation	1,950 m (6,398 ft)
Base elevation	1,080 m (3,543 ft)

Patscherkofel

Location in Austria

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. 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 2018, no Olympic men's downhill champion has repeated; Russi remains the sole defender to medal.