In Olympic downhill skiing, the race is decided on one timed run.

Quick Scoop: How Many Runs?

For the Olympic downhill events (men’s and women’s):

  • Each skier gets 1 race run on the course.
  • The skier with the fastest single-run time wins the gold; there’s no combined time from multiple downhill runs.
  • The run typically lasts around 1–2 minutes, depending on the course and conditions.

This is different from technical events like slalom or giant slalom, which usually use two runs with combined times to decide the medals.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.