Alpine_skiing_at_the_1998_Winter_Olympics_–_Women's_downhill
The Women's Downhill competition of the Nagano 1998 Olympics was held at Happo-One at Hakuba on Monday, February 16.[1][2] The race was delayed two days due to rain and fog.[3]
The defending world champion was Hilary Lindh of the United States, while Austria's Renate Goetschl was the defending World Cup downhill champion.[4][5]
Katja Seizinger successfully defended her Olympic title, Pernilla Wiberg took the silver, and Florence Masnada was the bronze medalist.[3][6] Through 2019, Seizinger remains the only ski racer in history to repeat as an Olympic downhill gold medalist.
The Olympic Course II started at an elevation of 1,590 m (5,217 ft) above sea level with a vertical drop of 691 m (2,267 ft) and a length of 2.518 km (1.56 mi). Seizinger's winning time was 88.89 seconds, yielding an average course speed of 101.978 km/h (63.4 mph), with an average vertical descent rate of 7.774 m/s (25.5 ft/s).