![]() ![]() But he pulled out one of his signature full-carve turns on the last right-hand bend, and it was enough to see him overhaul Russi by. Too much air on the top jump cost him some time and he trailed the Swiss for much of the course. The reigning Olympic champion Bernard Russi had set an impressive time from start number 3, and at first it didn’t look like Klammer would be able to better it. Klammer’s starting draw of 15 was the worst possible – the world’s best 15 were selected at random for the early start numbers, on a track thatwas set to deteriorate with every racer because of warm weather conditions. Klammer with fellow skier Bernhard Russi (right) Photo: Sports Illustrated “I never did very well in races that did not matter so much, but in the big races when there was a lot of pressure on me, that’s when I performed the best.” The expectation was enormous, but Klammer thrived on the pressure. Psychologically he was intimidating too: “When you start winning, you give off this aura in the starting corral and the others are almost beaten already.” Going into the Innsbruck 1976 Olympics, Klammer had won 12 out of the last 14 World Cup downhill races, including consecutive wins on the toughest of them all, the Hahnenkamm in Kitzbühel, Austria. It was not just technically that he had the upper hand over his opponents his farm work as a child had made him strong as an ox, and he trained hard to increase that strength. Like so many truly great sportsmen who suddenly raise the bar, Klammer broke with convention and created a new way of winning. The fact that Klammer started skiing so late in his backyard, and was not schooled at an established Alpine racing club, might well have been the key to his success. Don’t ask me how I came up with the technique, it just came naturally.” My technique was kind of rugged and my upper body was really unstable, but if you looked at my skis they were carving on their edges much earlier in the turn. “If you look at the old technique of, say, Karl Schranz and Jean-Claude Killy, they would start the turn with a skid, then try to carve out of it. ![]() So what was Klammer doing that no one else could? “I was the first downhill skier who carved through the whole turn,” he says. In the following season, 1974/75, Klammer became almost unbeatable – nine World Cup downhills, eight victories and one failure to finish after a binding pre-release. The next season, at just 20 years old, Klammer recorded his first World Cup win in Schladming, Austria, and followed it up with a silver medal in February at the St Moritz World Championships in Switzerland. At the time Klammer was also an accomplished giant slalom skier and he recorded his one and only podium in this discipline with a third place in Mount Ste Anne, Canada, in that first season. He came fifth, and his first podium came shortly after with a second place in the Arlberg Kandahar downhill in St Anton, Austria. In December 1973, Klammer was back in Val Gardena, for the start of his first full season on the World Cup tour. The Austrian risked everything for speed Photo: Sports Illustrated “In the timed training run I skied into 9th position, up there with all these great skiers, but in the race I was so nervous that I only managed 32nd.” He was up against the world’s best, including the dominant Swiss team that boasted Bernard Russi and Rolland Collombin, who had taken gold and silver respectively at the Sapporo Winter Olympics in Japan just weeks before. Klammer made his World Cup debut in 1972 at 19 years old, on the Saaslong downhill in Val Gardena, Italy. My parents didn’t have any money and I had to buy all my own equipment but I thought, ski racing is my life, and I wanted to do it no matter what.” “I left school at 14 and worked on the family farm in the summer, and ski raced in the winter. But from that late start, his rise was meteoric and there was no questioning his dedication. Kids in the neighbouring Alpine regions of Tirol or Salzburgerland would have started at eight years old. Klammer started racing very late in comparison to his contemporaries, entering his first race at 14. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |