His performance in the 1974 World Championships on home snow was disappointing; he was thirteenth in the downhill at St. Moritz. At the 1976 Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria, Russi nearly retained his Olympic title with a very fast time in the downhill at Patscherkofel, but took the silver medal. The third racer on the course, he finished 0.33 seconds behind Franz Klammer of Austria, who started fifteenth, the last of the top seeds. To date (2018) no men's Olympic champion in the downhill has successfully defended his title; Russi remains the sole defender to medal. As in 1974, his performance in the 1978 World Championships at Garmisch was disappointing, finishing fourteenth in the downhill in late January. As a result of this, he retired from international competition a few days later with ten World Cup victories, 28 podiums, and 52 top ten finishes. In addition to his two downhill titles in 1971 and 1972, Russi was second in 1973 and third in 1976 and 1977. His best finish in the overall standings was fifth, achieved three times in 1971, 1972, and 1977. From 1948 through 1980, the Winter Olympics also served as the world championships for alpine skiing. During the early seasons of the World Cup, the Olympics (1968) and world championships (1970) were included in the World Cup season standings; these major competitions were excluded beginning with the 1971 season. Russi currently serves as the chairman of the FIS Alpine Committee and is a FIS technical advisor for downhill course design. Beginning with the 1988 Winter Olympics, Russi has been noted as a designer of downhill courses for the Olympics, and he has also designed such courses for the FIS Alpine Skiing World Championships. The "Rattlesnake"-course at Vail in 1989 was a "formidable challenge" to him. Another famous course of his was the "Face de Bellevarde" at Val-d’Isère (1992 Winter Olympics), and he was the construction supervisor for the Rosa Khutor course at Krasnaja Poljana (2014 Winter Olympics). This stemmed from dissatisfaction with the courses at the 1980 and 1984 games; since Russi took over, there have been few complaints. He also serves as a commentator for alpine ski racing on Swiss television. - He also is a brand ambassador for Japanese car manufacturer Subaru and for several Swiss companies. After the end of his marriage to Michèle Rubi (a three-times Swiss Skiing Champion in 1970) he married Mari Bergström from Sweden.