.jpg) Klammer in 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Born | (1953-12-03)3 December 1953 (age 71) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Occupation | Alpine skier | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Height | 1.83 m (6 ft 0 in) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Skiing career | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Disciplines | Downhill,giant slalom,combined | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| World Cup debut | December1972 (age 19) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Retired | March1985 (age 31) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Olympics | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Teams | 2 –(1976,1984) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Medals | 1 (1 gold) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| World Championships | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Teams | 5 – (1974–85) includes 1976 Olympics | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Medals | 3 (2 gold) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| World Cup | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Seasons | 13 – (1973–85) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wins | 26 – (25DH, 1K) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Podiums | 45 – (41DH, 1GS, 3K) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Overall titles | 0 –(3rd in1975,1977) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Discipline titles | 5 – (5DH:1975–78,1983) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Franz Klammer (born 3 December 1953) is a former championalpine ski racer fromAustria. He dominated thedownhill event for four consecutiveWorld Cup seasons (1975–78). He was the gold medalist at the1976 Winter Olympics inInnsbruck, winning the downhill atPatscherkofel by a margin of 0.33 seconds with a time of 1:45.73. Klammer won 25 World Cup downhills, including four on theHahnenkamm atKitzbühel. He also holds the record for the most victories (four) on the full course at Kitzbühel.
Klammer was born into a farming family in Mooswald, communityFresach,Carinthia; like many alpine farm boys, he skied to school each winter day. His home village did not have anyski 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.[1] He had a tough struggle to make the Austrian ski team, which traditionally was dominated by thestates ofTyrol andSalzburg. He made his World Cup debut at the age of 19 in 1972 at theVal Gardena downhill: he finished ninth in the training run for the race, but could only manage 32nd place on race day due to nerves.[1] He spent 13 seasons on the World Cup circuit, from December1972 to March1985.
Klammer has been married to his wife, Eva, since 1979: the couple met in 1975 when he was inTunisia at a fitness camp with the Austrian ski team. They have two daughters, Sophie and Stephanie.[1]
Klammer first showed signs of promise in the second half of the1973 World Cup season, finishing second in theSt. Anton downhill behindBernhard Russi ofSwitzerland, the reigningOlympic andWorld Cup downhill champion. Klammer, aged 19, followed this up with a third atSt. Moritz and a third in thegiant slalom atMont Sainte-Anne (the only time he finished on the podium in a World Cup giant slalom in his career).[1] The following season he finished second in the downhill standings behindRoland Collombin of Switzerland. Klammer beat Collombin and Russi atSchladming in December 1973 under terrible conditions, but Collombin bested him atGarmisch,Avoriaz andWengen.
Klammer won every downhill in the1975 season, exceptMegève, 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 atChamonix, which would have granted him at least a third place (15 points) for the AK-combined of slalom Chamonix / downhill Megève.[2] In the Olympic test event atPatscherkofel atInnsbruck in January 1975, Klammer had defeateddefending Olympic champion Bernhard Russi of Switzerland, the runner-up, by nearly a half-second.[3]
Entering the1976 Winter Olympics, the 22-year-old Klammer was the favourite to take the gold medal in thedownhill at Innsbruck in his native Austria. He was the defending World Cup downhill champion and had won the three previous downhills in January atWengen,Morzine andKitzbühel, and also the previous year's race on the same Patscherkofel course. Starting in 15th position, Klammer was the last of the top seeds and knew that Bernhard 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 theAustrian fans. A dozen years earlier on the same course in1964,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. The second speed event, thesuper-G, was not a World Cup event until December1982, at the twilight of Klammer's World Cup career.
At the end of the1975 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'sGustav Thöni defeated Sweden'sIngemar Stenmark in the finals and won his fourth overall title in five years. Klammer finished fourth overall in 1976, third in1977, and fifth in1978.[4]
Klammer won the World Cup downhill title five times: 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978 and1983 – 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 prestigiousStreif on theHahnenkamm atKitzbühel. He won a fourth in1984, at the age of 30.
After his fourth consecutive season title in downhill in 1978, he began a prolonged slump until the end of the1981 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 (fromFischer toKneissl).[citation needed]
Unable to make the four-member Austrian downhill team for the 1980 Olympics, Klammer could not defend his Olympic title at the1980 Winter Olympics inLake Placid. Rather than retire, he worked long and hard at a comeback. Finally in December1981, after another ski change fromKneissl toBlizzard, he won atVal-d'Isère. The following season he regained the World Cup Downhill title, his fifth, followed by the 1984 victory at Kitzbuehel, his fourth on the Hahnenkamm. At the1984 Olympics inSarajevo, (thenYugoslavia, nowBosnia), Klammer finished a disappointing tenth on a less-than-challenging course onBjelašnica.
At his peak (Wengen 1976 to Wengen 1977), Klammer won ten consecutive downhills, including the pressure-laden win at the 1976 Olympics. He won 8 of 9 during the 1975 season and also won 19 of 23, 20 of 26 and 21 of 29 downhills. His career total is 26 downhill wins: 25 World Cup and 1 Olympic. These achievements mark him as one of the greatest downhill racers ever:Karl Schranz achieved 20 wins over an extended career while Klammer won 19 in less than three seasons.
In an interview withAustrian television in 2006, the 52-year-old Klammer was asked about his greatest achievement. He answered that although his gold medal at the Olympic Games in Innsbruck was generally regarded as his greatest career achievement, winning atKitzbühel in1984 meant something very special to him, considering that he had not won there for seven years.
His final World Cup race was in March 1985 atAspen,Colorado. He retired from international competition at the age of 31.
Klammer finished with 26 World Cup victories, 45 podiums and 87 top ten finishes (71 downhill, 5combined, 11giant slalom).[5]
Immediately after his retirement from alpine competition, Klammer took up motor racing, and was soon involved intouring car racing, driving Mercedes-Benz saloons all over Europe and racing professionally as far away as Australia. In 1990, he won a round of the prestigiousEuropean Touring Car Championship.[6]
Klammer was a hero to Austrian ski racing fans and also to fans the world over for doing a great deal to promote the popularity of alpine ski racing.[citation needed] He is known as "TheKaiser" and also as the "Klammer Express".
In a 2015 interview withGraham Bell forThe Daily Telegraph, Klammer attributed his success to being the first downhiller tocarve a whole turn from start to finish, contrasting his style with skiers of the previous generation such asKarl Schranz andJean-Claude Killy who would skid at the start of a turn before engaging in a carve.[1]
In an interview withTom Brokaw that aired onNBC on 13 February 2010, as part of their2010 Winter Olympics coverage,AmericanOlympianBode Miller cited Klammer's style and approach to ski racing as a major source of inspiration for him.[citation needed]
Inspired by his younger brother Klaus, who wasparalysed from the waist down after a crash in a downhill at the age of 16,[1] Klammer has established the Franz Klammer Foundation, which benefits seriously injured athletes.[7]
| Season | Discipline |
|---|---|
| 1975 | Downhill |
| 1976 | Downhill |
| 1977 | Downhill |
| 1978 | Downhill |
| 1983 | Downhill |
| Season | Age | Overall | Slalom | Giant slalom | Super G | Downhill | Combined |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1973 | 19 | 8 | — | 9 | not run | 4 | not awarded |
| 1974 | 20 | 5 | — | 10 | 2 | ||
| 1975 | 21 | 3 | — | 9 | 1 | ||
| 1976 | 22 | 4 | — | — | 1 | 4 | |
| 1977 | 23 | 3 | — | — | 1 | not awarded | |
| 1978 | 24 | 5 | — | — | 1 | ||
| 1979 | 25 | 51 | — | — | 19 | ||
| 1980 | 26 | 33 | — | — | 11 | — | |
| 1981 | 27 | 40 | — | — | 13 | — | |
| 1982 | 28 | 14 | — | — | 5 | — | |
| 1983 | 29 | 18 | — | — | not awarded | 1 | — |
| 1984 | 30 | 20 | — | — | 4 | — | |
| 1985 | 31 | 52 | — | — | 16 | — |
| Season | Date | Location | Discipline |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1974 | 22 Dec 1973 |  Schladming,Austria | Downhill |
| 1975 | 8 Dec 1974 |  Val-d'Isère,France | Downhill |
| 15 Dec 1974 |  St. Moritz,Switzerland | Downhill | |
| 5 Jan 1975 |  Garmisch,West Germany | Downhill | |
| 11 Jan 1975 | Wengen, Switzerland | Downhill | |
| 18 Jan 1975 | Kitzbühel, Austria | Downhill | |
| 26 Jan 1975 | Innsbruck, Austria | Downhill | |
| 9 Mar 1975 |  Jackson Hole,USA | Downhill | |
| 21 Mar 1975 |  Val Gardena,Italy | Downhill | |
| 1976 | 12 Dec 1975 | Madonna di Campiglio, Italy | Downhill |
| 10 Jan 1976 | Wengen, Switzerland | Downhill | |
| 11 Jan 1976 | Combined | ||
| 17 Jan 1976 | Morzine, France | Downhill | |
| 25 Jan 1976 | Kitzbühel, Austria | Downhill | |
| 12 Mar 1976 | Aspen, USA | Downhill | |
| 1977 | 17 Dec 1976 | Val Gardena, Italy | Downhill |
| 8 Jan 1977 | Garmisch, West Germany | Downhill | |
| 15 Jan 1977 | Kitzbühel, Austria | Downhill | |
| 22 Jan 1977 | Wengen, Switzerland | Downhill | |
| 18 Feb 1977 | Laax, Switzerland | Downhill | |
| 1978 | 11 Dec 1977 | Val-d'Isère, France | Downhill |
| 11 Mar 1978 | Laax, Switzerland | Downhill | |
| 1982 | 6 Dec 1981 | Val-d'Isère, France | Downhill |
| 1983 | 20 Dec 1982 | Val Gardena, Italy | Downhill |
| 1984 | 21 Jan 1984 | Kitzbühel, Austria | Downhill |
| Year | Age | Slalom | Giant slalom | Super-G | Downhill | Combined |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1974 | 20 | 20 | 10 | not run | 2 | 1 |
| 1976 | 22 | — | DNF1 | 1 | — | |
| 1978 | 24 | — | — | 5 | — | |
| 1980 | 26 | — | — | —^ | — | |
| 1982 | 28 | — | — | 7 | — | |
| 1985 | 31 | — | — | 5 | — |
From1948 through1980, theWinter Olympics were also theWorld Championships for alpine skiing.
At the World Championships from1954 through 1980, the combined was a "paper race" using the results of the three events (DH, GS, SL).
| Year | Age | Slalom | Giant slalom | Super-G | Downhill | Combined |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1976 | 22 | — | DNF1 | not run | 1 | not run |
| 1980 | 26 | — | — | —^ | ||
| 1984 | 30 | — | — | 10 |
^Klammer was an alternate on the 1980 team and did not compete.
| |
Men's World Champions:Downhill • Super-G • Giant Slalom • Slalom • Combined • Parallel Giant Slalom • Mixed Team |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| People | |
