Franz Klammer

Franz Klammer (born 3 December 1953) is a former champion alpine ski racer from Austria.

A dozen years earlier on the same course in 1964, Egon Zimmermann posted a 2:18.16 to win the gold medal.

Klammer's 1:45.73 was more than thirty-two seconds faster.

Although he dominated the downhill event in World Cup competition, the overall title remained elusive, because the technical specialists had two events in which to earn points (slalom and giant slalom), whereas a speed specialist had only one.

He made his World Cup debut at the age of 19 in 1972 at the Val Gardena downhill: he finished ninth in the training run for the race, but could only manage 32nd place on race day due to nerves.

He spent 13 seasons on the World Cup circuit, from December 1972 to March 1985.

Klammer first showed signs of promise in the second half of the 1973 World Cup season, finishing second in the St. Anton downhill behind Bernhard Russi of Switzerland, the reigning Olympic and World Cup downhill champion.

Klammer, age 19, followed this up with a third at St. Moritz and a third in the giant slalom at Mont Sainte-Anne (the only time he finished on the podium in a World Cup giant slalom in his career).

The following season he finished second in the downhill standings behind Roland Collombin of Switzerland.

After beating Collombin and Russi at Schladming in December 1973 under terrible conditions, Collombin bested him at Garmisch, Avoriaz and Wengen.

Klammer dominated the downhill event for four consecutive World Cup seasons (1975–78).

Klammer won every downhill in the 1975 season, except Megève, where one of his skis came off.

Without this incident, he would have won the overall World Cup title in March 1975, due to a good slalom result two days earlier at Chamonix, which would have granted him at least a third place (15 points) for the AK-combined of slalom Chamonix / downhill Megève.

In the Olympic test event at Patscherkofel at Innsbruck in January 1975, Klammer had defeated defending Olympic champion Bernhard Russi of Switzerland, the runner-up, by nearly a half-second.

At the end of the 1975 season, despite having won 8 of 9 downhills, he finished third for the overall World Cup title.

The final event was a parallel slalom and Klammer lost in the first round.

Italy's Gustav Thöni defeated Sweden's Ingemar Stenmark in the finals and won his fourth overall title in five years.

Klammer won the World Cup downhill title five times: 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978 and 1983 – twice more than the next best downhiller.

In the 1975 season he won 8 of 9 World Cup downhill races, including his first of three consecutive victories (1975–77) on the prestigious Streif on the Hahnenkamm at Kitzbühel.

He was the gold medalist at the 1976 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, winning the downhill at Patscherkofel by a margin of 0.33 seconds with a time of 1:45.73.

He won 25 World Cup downhills, including four on the Hahnenkamm at Kitzbühel.

He also holds the record for the most victories (four) on the full course at Kitzbühel.

Born into a farming family in Mooswald, community Fresach, Carinthia, and like many alpine farm boys, Klammer skied to school each winter day.

His home village did not have any ski lifts, so as a child he climbed up the pasture behind his house to ski downhill.

Klammer started racing at the relatively late age of 14, competing in the winter whilst working on the family farm during the summer after he dropped out of school.

He had a tough struggle to make the Austrian ski team, traditionally dominated by the states of Tyrol and Salzburg.

Entering the 1976 Winter Olympics, the 22-year-old Klammer was the favourite to take the gold medal in the downhill at Innsbruck in his native Austria.

He was the defending World Cup downhill champion and had won the three previous downhills in January at Wengen, Morzine and Kitzbühel, and also the previous year's race on the same Patscherkofel course.

Klammer finished fourth overall in 1976, third in 1977, and fifth in 1978.

After his fourth consecutive season title in downhill in 1978, he began a prolonged slump until the end of the 1981 season.

He may have been affected by his brother's spinal cord injury in a downhill race, as well as a change of ski supplier (from Fischer to Kneissl).

Klammer has been married to his wife, Eva, since 1979: the couple met in 1975 when he was in Tunisia at a fitness camp with the Austrian ski team.

They have two daughters, Sophie and Stephanie.

Unable to make the four-member Austrian downhill team for the 1980 Olympics, Klammer could not defend his Olympic title at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid.

Rather than retire, he worked long and hard at a comeback.

Finally in December 1981, after another ski change from Kneissl to Blizzard, he won at Val-d'Isère.

The second speed event, the super-G, was not a World Cup event until December 1982, at the twilight of Klammer's World Cup career.

He won a fourth in 1984, at the age of 30.

Starting in 15th position, Klammer was the last of the top seeds and knew that Russi had set a blistering pace to lead by over a half-second.

Klammer took heavy risks on the treacherous piste, skied on the edge of disaster and won by 0.33 seconds to the delight of the Austrian fans.