Karl Schranz

Karl Schranz

Schranz at Kitzbühel
Personal information
Born	(1938-11-18) 18 November 1938 (age 85) St. Anton, Tyrol, Austria
Occupation	Alpine skier
Height	175 cm (5 ft 9 in)
Skiing career
Disciplines	Downhill, giant slalom, slalom, combined
World Cup debut	January 1967 (age 28) inaugural season
Retired	February 1972 (age 33)
Website	karlschranz.com
Olympics
Teams	3 – (1960, 1964, 1968)
Medals	1 (0 gold)
World Championships
Teams	6 – (1960–70) includes three Olympics
Medals	6 (3 gold)
World Cup
Seasons	6 – (1967–72)
Wins	12 – (8 DH, 4 GS)
Podiums	23 – (12 DH, 9 GS, 2 SL)
Overall titles	2 – (1969, 1970)
Discipline titles	3 – (2 DH, 1 GS)
Medal record Men's alpine skiing Representing  Austria World Cup race podiums Event 1st 2nd 3rd Slalom 0 1 1 Giant slalom 4 1 4 Downhill 8 1 3 Total 12 3 8 Olympic Games 1964 Innsbruck Giant slalom World Championships 1962 Chamonix Downhill 1962 Chamonix Combined 1970 Val Gardena Giant slalom 1962 Chamonix Giant slalom 1966 Portillo Giant slalom

Karl Schranz (born 18 November 1938) is a former champion alpine ski racer from Austria, one of the best of the 1960s and early 1970s.

Born and raised in St. Anton, Tyrol, Schranz had a lengthy ski career, from 1957 to 1972. He won twenty major downhills, many major giant slalom races and several major slaloms. Late in his career he was the successor to Jean-Claude Killy as the World Cup overall champion; Schranz won the title at age 30 in the third World Cup season of 1969, and repeated in 1970. He was also the downhill champion for those two seasons and was the giant slalom season champion in 1969. Schranz won both the "classic downhills" four times each: the Hahnenkamm at Kitzbühel, Austria(1966, 1969, 1972, 1972), and the Lauberhorn at Wengen, Switzerland (1959, 1963, 1966, 1969). He also excelled at the legendary Arlberg-Kandahar events, winning nine times, from 1957 (Chamonix) to 1970 (Garmisch-Partenkirchen).

Early years

Schranz' father was a tunnel worker in St. Anton, which led to an early death from tuberculosis; his widow was left to raise five children. In addition to the hardship, their hut burned down. At age 12, Schranz became an apprentice ski maker, then worked in a sawmill, and later became a ski tester. Schranz began skiing before age five on salvaged broken skis, left by tourists and reworked by his father.^[1]

At age 18, he won the first of three consecutive Arlberg-Kandahar downhill and combined titles at Chamonix in March 1957.^[2] Schranz won again the following year, rotated back to his hometown at St. Anton,^[3] and also in 1959 at Garmisch, West Germany.^[4] He missed the 1958 World Championships in Bad Gastein due to illness.^[3]

Olympics

The Olympics were unfortunately Schranz's nemesis. His disqualification from his fourth Olympics in 1972 for acknowledging that he, like all other top racers, was not a pure amateur caused a furor and subsequent reform of the IOC. In his first Olympics in 1960, at age 21, Schranz was injured but started anyway and finished seventh in both the downhill and giant slalom. He won a silver medal in giant slalom in 1964 at Innsbruck, despite being ill with the flu.

In 1968 at Grenoble, France, Schranz competed in all three alpine events, held at Chamrousse. He finished fifth in the downhill and sixth in the giant slalom, both won by rival Jean-Claude Killy of the host country. In his first run in the slalom, Schranz's time was only 0.32 behind. His second run was run in a very dense fog, which hampered his visibility, and Schranz claimed he was impeded by a race official which affected his race. He was given another chance to run the second run and took the lead, but was later informed that his first attempt at run two should have been counted as he missed a gate before encountering the race official, and Schranz was disqualified. A jury upheld the decision and Killy was declared the winner for a third Olympic gold medal in the same games. There was a great deal of controversy over the suspicion that partisan French officials were attempting unfairly to prevent Schranz from winning so that Killy would sweep all three races, duplicating Toni Sailer's 1956 sweep.^{[citation needed]}

Schranz had better success at the world championships of non-Olympic years: gold in the downhill and combined in 1962 and gold in the giant slalom in 1970.^[5] (From 1948 through 1980, the Winter Olympics were also the world championships for alpine skiing.)

Classified as a professional by the International Olympic Committee,^[1][6] Schranz was banned from the 1972 Winter Olympics and retired from the World Cup circuit in mid-February at age 33.^[7] In July 1973, he joined the pro ski racing circuit.^[8][9]

Schranz later became a hotel owner in his hometown of St. Anton and played a key role in organizing the 2001 World Championships.^[10]

World Cup results

Season titles

• 5 titles - (2 overall, 2 DH, 1 GS)

Season standings

Results from the 1968 Winter Olympics and 1970 World Championships were included the World Cup standings.

Individual races

• 12 wins - (8 DH, 4 GS)
• 23 podiums - (12 DH, 9 GS, 2 SL)

Season	Date	Location	Discipline
1969	12 December 1968	Val-d'Isère, France	Giant slalom
	11 January 1969	Wengen, Switzerland	Downhill
	18 January 1969	Kitzbühel, Austria	Downhill
	1 February 1969	St. Anton, Austria	Downhill
	15 March 1969	Mont St. Anne, Canada	Giant slalom
1970	5 January 1970	Adelboden, Switzerland	Giant slalom
	23 January 1970	Megève, France	Downhill
	1 February 1970	Garmisch, West Germany	Downhill
	10 February 1970	Val Gardena, Italy	Giant slalom
1972	12 December 1971	Val-d'Isère, France	Downhill
	14 January 1972	Kitzbühel, Austria	Downhill
	15 January 1972		Downhill

World Championship results

1958: illness
1972: banned by IOC

Olympic results

References

• Schranz, Karl (2002). Mein "Olympiasieg". Aufgezeichnet von Stefan König und Gerhard Zimmer. Munich: Herbig Verlag. ISBN 3-7766-2308-X.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Karl Schranz.

• Karl Schranz at the International Ski and Snowboard Federation
• Karl Schranz – 1967–72 World Cup standings at the International Ski Federation
• Karl Schranz at Ski-DB Alpine Ski Database
• Karl Schranz at Olympics at Sports-Reference.com (archived)
• Official website – (in German)
• Karl Schranz in the German National Library catalogue

Awards
Preceded by Toni Sailer	Austrian Sportsman of the Year 1959	Succeeded by Ernst Hinterseer
Preceded by Heinrich Thun	Austrian Sportsman of the Year 1962	Succeeded by Heinrich Thun
Preceded by Liese Prokop	Austrian Sportspersonality of the year 1970	Succeeded by Ilona Gusenbauer