Alpine SkiingAlpine Skiing Men
Franz Klammer, who has mostly dominated the men's downhill enough to still be considered the greatest racer of all time, turns 60: Best Wishes!
Tuesday 3 December 2013 5 minutes reading time
Kaiser Franz, as it is now called, was born December 3, 1953 at Mooswald, a tiny village in Carinthia. After winning a Europa Cup downhill in Bad Kleinkirchheim still very young in 1971, the year after his debut in the World Cup in Val Gardena. On 22 December 1973 on the terrible and ghiacciatissima Planai in Schladming, he caught his first hit in the major circuit. The World Championships in St. Moritz in 1974 was combined gold and silver in downhill behind compatriot David Zwilling.
From the following season he began his rule: 8 December 1974 (Val d'Isère) 22 January 1977 (Wengen) triumphed in 18 runs in the World Cup of 22, in the winter of 1974-75 he won 8 of 9 and missed the crystal ball only absolute parallel in the famous Val Gardena, which had arrived on equal points with thoeni and Gustav Ingemar Stenmark. The January 11, 1975 stravinse downhill in Wengen with the detachment of pioneering 3 "to 54 runner-up, blue Herbert Plank, certainly not any. Finally, from 10 January 1976 until January 22, 1977 he won nine consecutive Cup downhill, still unbeaten record.
But the victory for which all still remember him and that, as he himself admitted in an interview with ORF, has changed his life, is down to the Games in Innsbruck February 5, 1976. On the terrible PATSCHERKOFEL put on display his well-known aggressive style and brave almost beyond the limit of recklessness and mocked in the final 33 cents for his great rival Swiss Bernhard Russi. After the race, said he had a feeling of impending fall along the entire length of the route.
In the 1977-78 season he won his fourth consecutive Cup downhill but right at the beginning of the winter his younger brother Klaus was only 17 remained paraplegic after a fall in Lienz. Klammer was a dramatic collapse of return, indeed, we can say that he became a shadow of himself so that for nearly four years has not won more than one race. He succeeded again December 6, 1981 in Val d'Isere then, after having pocketed the fifth cup downhill in 1982-83, January 21, 1984 triumphed again in Kitzbühel.
That was his fourth win on the Streif, then it was a record that was passed just two years ago by Didier Cuche, and that success led him in his total of victories in the World Cup downhill at 25, a record that is not never yet been even remotely threatened by anyone in the men's field: the closest, at an altitude of 19, is the Swiss Peter Müller, another great downhill of the seventies and eighties and the one who has the most wins downhill in business is Bode Miller, stopped at 8. Klammer, who also won a combined Lauberhorn in Wengen in 1976, retired in March 1985 after competing in Aspen.
In the video below there is the expectation of Austria on the day of the Olympic downhill in Innsbruck, race Klammer and crazed fans, as indeed the whole country, to the finish line. Do not miss it!
Social media engagement
More details
Più letti in Sport invernali
Brignone, il ritorno al J Medical e la fiducia che aumenta: Fede lavora a Torino dove ha vissuto il suo straordinario recupero
Già a metà di questa settimana, quando sono trascorsi 16 giorni dal nuovo intervento chirurgico, la campionissima azzurra ha iniziato a sudare nel centro ideato dalla Juventus: Federico Bristot, capo dei fisioterapisti della struttura, sempre al suo fianco.
2