Flying Franz
The man who gave himself
"terrible frights"
by Mike Morrison
During the 1970s and early 1980s, Austrian
downhill-skiing star Franz Klammer won 25 races on the World Cup circuit.
His five World Cup downhill titles (1975 1978, 1983) are still more than
any other skier in history (no one else even has four).
If there's
one moment, however, that defines Klammer's career, it is his spectacular,
gold-medal-winning run at the 1976 Olympics in
his own backyard at Innsbruck. Having
won three World Cup races in 1976 (to that point), and eight out of a possible
nine in 1975, Klammer was the odds-on favorite to win the gold medal.
He was (and still is) immensely popular in his native
Austria, as evidenced by the 60,000-plus screaming fans that lined the
course that day to cheer on their hero. And they were all disappointed to
learn that Klammer would be skiing 15th out of the 15-man first seeding. Surely
the course would be treacherously icy by the time of his run.
Switzerland's
Bernhard Russi, the defending Olympic downhill champion
and the third skier of the day, skied flawlessly, grabbing the early
lead with a time of 1:46.06.
Eleven skiers came and went, pushing
much of the snow off the course in the process, and Russi held onto the top
time. And then came Klammer.
The man known as “Kaiser Franz,”
“The Austrian Astronaut,” and “The Klammer Express,”
crouched down in the starting gate and peered out over the icy course laid
out in front of him. He knew what he had to do.
Klammer took off
and perilously flung himself down the mountain. His 1,000-meter split was
slower than Russi's, but Klammer continued down, taking several risks and
balancing on the edge of disaster.
It all paid off. As he flew over
the last jump and down the final stretch, the crowd's deafening yells told
him all he needed to know. Klammer came in at 1:45.73, besting Russia
by .33 for the gold.
“I thought I was going to crash all the
way,” he would later say. “I gave myself terrible frights.”
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