Franz Klammer - Career

Career

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 following season he finished second in the downhill standings behind Roland Collombin of Switzerland, his nemesis that season. After beating Collombin at Schladming under terrible conditions, Collombin bested him at Garmisch, Avoriaz, and Wengen. In December 1974, Collombin fell at Val-d'Isère, as he had the previous year. This time Collombin broke his back in a training run, unfortunately ending his promising career. Klammer won that race and every other downhill that 1975 season, except Megève, where his ski came off; without this incident, he would have won the overall title of 1975, due to a good slalom result two days before at Chamonix, which would have granted him at least a third place (15 points) for the combined of slalom Chamonix / downhill Megève. In the Olympic tune-up run 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.

Entering the 1976 Winter Olympics, the 22 year old Klammer was the favorite 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. Starting in the 15th position, Klammer was the last of the top seeds, and knew that Russi had set a blistering pace on the course at Patscherkofel, leading 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.

• Top 15 finishers

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

At the end of the 1975 season, despite having won 8 of 9 downhills, he finished third for the overall World Cup title; he finished fourth in 1976, third in 1977, and fifth in 1978

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

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). Unable to make the strong 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 following season he regained the World Cup Downhill title, his fifth, followed by the 1984 victory at Kitzbuehel, his fourth on the Hahnenkamm. At the 1984 Olympics in Sarajevo, (then Yugoslavia, now Bosnia), Klammer finished a disappointing tenth on a less-than-challenging course on Bjelašnica. The race was won by the brash Bill Johnson of the U.S., an excellent glider who had recently won his first World Cup race on a shortened course at Wengen. Johnson had promising training runs and publicly predicted his Olympic victory. Klammer had been involved in a controversy with Johnson when he described him to a teammate as a 'nasenbohre' after he won a race earlier in the season. A 'nasenbohre' is slang in some German speaking areas for a 'rookie' but its literal translation is 'nose picker'.

At his peak (Wengen 1976 to Wengen 1977), Klammer won ten consecutive downhills, including the spectacular, pressure-laden win at the 1976 Olympics. He won 8 of 9 during the 1975 season. He 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 arguably the greatest downhill racer ever: Karl Schranz achieved 20 wins over an extended career while Klammer won 19 in less than three seasons.

In an interview with Austrian 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 at Kitzbühel in 1984 meant something very special to him, considering he hadn't won there since 1977.

Klammer was never an elegant downhill skier, his focus was speed and victory. In his descents he appeared at times to be dangerously off balance. In spite, or perhaps because of his unique style of skiing, he was able to consistently dominate a field of gifted competitors.

His final World Cup race was in February 1985; he retired from international competition at age 31.
Klammer finished with 26 World Cup victories, 45 podiums and 87 top ten finishes (71 downhill, 5 combined, 11 giant slalom).