Date | 2 February 1948 — 10:01 | |
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Status | Olympic | |
Location | Corviglia, St. Moritz | |
Participants | 111 from 25 countries | |
Course Setter | ![]() | |
Details | Gates: ? Length: 3400 m Start Altitude: ? Vertical Drop: 900 m |
Henri Oreiller won the downhill competition by a huge margin of over 4 seconds. He would also add a second gold medal in the combined at the St. Moritz Olympics, using his dominant downhill performance as a section of that event, and added a bronze in the slalom. Oreiller had been a member of the French underground during World War II. He continued to compete thru 1952, placing fourth in the giant slalom at the 1950 Worlds. He then turned to car racing and raced for 10 years before dying in a crash of his Ferrari at Linas-Montlhéry race track. The bronze medalist was Switzerland’s Karl Molitor married Antoinette Meyer, silver medalist in the slalom in St. Moritz, later that year.