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]
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]
