Profile of Franz Klammer on Famous Like Me

Franz Klammer (born December 3, 1953) was an Austrian skier who dominated the downhill event throughout much of the mid to late 1970s. He won a gold medal at the 1976 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck.

Background

Klammer was born in Mooswald, Austria to a farming family. Given the opportunity to take up skiing he became adept very quickly, making his debut in the World Cup skiing competition in 1972 at the age of 19.

Career

At the 1976 Winter Olympics Klammer won the gold medal in the downhill by 0.33 seconds from defending champion Bernhard Russi, who had gone out before him and set a challenging target. The fact that Klammer was the last of the 15 competitors to go out, meant that his win on the treacherous course was even more remarkable.

Although the overall World Cup title remained elusive (largely because of skiers like Ingemar Stenmark and Klammer's concentration on the downhill), he won the World Cup downhill title 5 times. That is more than anybody else in the history of the sport. His wins were in 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978 and 1983. The 1975 season was memorable in that he won 8 out of the 9 World Cup downhill races.

At the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina) Klammer could not repeat his triumphs of the past and finished in 10th place.

Legacy

Klammer was a very popular skier, not only in Austria, but in other parts of the world when skiing was developing a large following. He had a variety of nicknames including The Klammer Express and The Austrian Astronaut. he certainly helped promote the sport of skiing and was an exciting draw for television. He retired from skiing in 1985 having won 25 World Cup downhill events.

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