![franz klammer youtube franz klammer youtube](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/8a/aa/87/8aaa871b01a403070ba264ba644444cb--ice-age-watches.jpg)
He has god-like status here, with a new World Cup downhill course, a mountain restaurant and even his favourite cake from the local pastry-maker named after him. Franz won 25 individual World Cup downhill races, five World Cup championships and a gold medal at the 1976 Winter Olympics at Innsbruck.Īnd if Franz is grateful to BKK, the resort's residents are, in turn, grateful to him. Suddenly people were asking, "Who is this guy?" and really this win on K70 was my launch into the World Cup circuit.'Īnd what a career it proved to be. He says: 'I was a nobody in skiing until I grabbed this opportunity, so BKK has been very good to me. But with that victory, the 18-year-old achieved a major breakthrough. He won his first downhill race here when Bad Kleinkirchheim - known as BKK - secured the right to host the inaugural European Cup competition in December 1971.Īt the time, Franz, a poor farmer's son from Mooswald in the Austrian province of Carinthia, was struggling for recognition in the skiing world. The King and I: Olympic gold medallist Franz Klammer and Neil English (right) K70 is very close to Franz's heart. The snow conditions were excellent everywhere during my trip but I felt they were somehow even better on K70 - the snow remained firm enough to hold a true and consistent line without straining any muscles. His compliment may have prompted raucous laughter and applause from a group of Austrian and British skiers standing beside the great man, but for me they meant the world. Then, as I drew to a neat stop as casually as I could, he uttered those modest, though to me, immortal words.
![franz klammer youtube franz klammer youtube](https://www.travelquotidiano.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/IMG_3270-06.02.-Ski-vor-9-Franz-Klammer-c-Mathias-Praegant.jpg)
The only words I could make out were “Own the Podium.” If the Canadians had been wearing gloves, they’d have dropped them.I would normally treat the compliment of 'not bad for an Englishman' with disdain, but this time it lifted my spirits up and over the beautiful Nockberge mountains of Austria.Īfter all, it's not every day your skills on the slopes are praised by Franz Klammer, one of the greatest downhill skiers of all time.įranz, known to everyone in Austria as Kaiser, was waiting at the bottom of K70, my favourite run in the resort of Bad Kleinkirchheim.Īs I skied down the exhilarating run towards him, trying desperately to carve my most precise and dynamic turns, Franz watched my technique intently. The Swiss began taunting the Canadians in thick, sing-songy Schweizerdeutsch. Four of them were carrying and clonking cowbells the size of Samsonites, to the great annoyance of the Canadian passengers. Much later that night, after a visit to a vodka cave and a collision with Queen Latifah (at least I’m pretty sure this was real and not a hallucination), I found myself on a municipal bus with a posse of plastered Swiss. I’m hoping the Swiss win more golds so that I can see this procession again. Didier Défago, who won the downhill, was later that night carried aloft by his countrymen, many of them in cow costume, through the streets of Whistler Village and into the House of Switzerland, the Helveticans’ HQ. You all missed a great race.Īnother thing you probably missed was the late-night celebrations of the Swiss, who, as of the next morning, led the Games in gold medals. NBC aired a severely edited version of the downhill later, in prime time, showing the runs of only about a half-dozen racers. But no-let’s watch snowboarders tuning their boards. And it is peerlessly dangerous, which would seem to fit NBC’s ghoulish interests. It has Bode Miller, probably the Games’ best-known participant. The downhill is the marquee event of the Games.
![franz klammer youtube franz klammer youtube](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/LXlJIkPbiPc/maxresdefault.jpg)
Instead, it had on cross-country skiing and the early heats of snowboard cross. I was getting angry text messages from home: NBC, I gather, chose not to show the downhill live.