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Klammer, Franz

  • AT-KF001
  • Persona
  • December 3, 1953 -

Franz Klammer is an Austrian retired alpine ski racer. He dominated the World Cup downhill event for four consecutive seasons from 1975 to 1978, winning 25 downhills in all and holding the record for the most victories on the Kitzbühel course. He also won gold in the downhill at the 1976 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck. He was born on December 3, 1953 in Mooswald, Austria. Born into a farming family, Klammer, like many alpine farm boys, skied to school each day in winter. His home village did not have any ski lifts, so as a child he climbed up the pasture behind his house to ski downhill. Klammer started racing at the relatively late age of 14, competing in the winter whilst working on the family farm during the summer after he dropped out of school. He had a tough struggle to make the Austrian ski team, traditionally dominated by the states of Tyrol and Salzburg. He made his World Cup debut at the age of 19 in 1972 at the Val Gardena downhill: he finished ninth in the training run for the race, but could only manage 32nd place on race day due to nerves. He spent 13 seasons on the World Cup circuit, from December 1972 to March 1985. Klammer has been married to his wife, Eva, since 1979: the couple met in 1975 when he was in Tunisia at a fitness camp with the Austrian ski team. They have two daughters, Sophie and Stephanie. Klammer won every downhill in the 1975 season, except Megève, where one of his skis came off. In the Olympic test event at Patscherkofel at Innsbruck in January 1975, Klammer defeated the 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 favourite 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, and also the previous year's race on the same Patscherkofel course. Starting in 15th position, Klammer was the last of the top seeds and knew that Russi had set a blistering pace to lead 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. Although he dominated the downhill event in World Cup competition, the overall title remained elusive, because the technical specialists had two events in which to earn points (slalom and 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. The final event was a parallel slalom and Klammer lost in the first round. Klammer finished fourth overall 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. 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 Unable to make the 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, 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 tenth on at Bjelašnica. At his peak (Wengen 1976 to Wengen 1977), Klammer won ten consecutive downhills, including the pressure-laden win at the 1976 Olympics. He won 8 of 9 during the 1975 season and 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. His final World Cup race was in March 1985 at Aspen, CO. 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). Immediately after his retirement from alpine competition, Klammer took up motor racing, and was soon involved in touring car racing, driving Mercedes-Benz saloons all over Europe and racing professionally as far away as Australia. In 1990, Klammer won a round of the prestigious European Touring Car Championship. Inspired by his younger brother Klaus, who was paralyzed from the waist down after a crash in a downhill at the age of 16, Klammer has established the Franz Klammer Foundation, which benefits seriously injured athletes.

Stock, Leonhard

  • AT-SL001
  • Persona
  • b. March 14, 1958

Leonhard Stock is a former World Cup alpine ski racer from Austria. He won the gold medal in the downhill at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics.

Sailer, Toni

  • AT-ST001
  • Persona
  • November 17, 1935 - August 24, 2009

Toni Sailer was one of the greatest alpine skiers of all time, and for many years he was the head coach of Whistler's Toni Sailer Summer Ski Camp. He was born Anton Englebert Sailer in Kitzbühel in 1935, where he was trained as a glazier and tin smith.

Sailer won more than 170 major ski races and helped to shape Austria's image as a skiing nation. At the 1956 Olympics in Cortina, Italy, Sailer became the first skier to win all three alpine gold medals at a Winter Olympics. In addition to these Olympic victories, he also collected seven world championship gold medals and one silver.

At the age of 23 he retired from competition and went on to become a film and singing star, playing the leading role in more than 20 movies. In the later 1960s Sailer was recruited by Roy Ferris and Allan White, owners of the Cheakamus Inn, to lead the summer ski camp they organized on Whistler Mountain.

For more than a decade Sailer spent his summers in Whistler, coaching young ski racers. Members of the camp's coaching staff included Nancy Greene Raine, French innovator Patrick Russel, Greg Lee and freestyle legend Wayne Wong.

Sailer married his first wife, Gaby Rummeny, in Vancouver in 1976. They had a son together named Florian. Years after Rummeny passed away Sailer got remarried to a woman named Hedwig Fischer.

Sailer also produced Toni Sailer skis in Canada during the early 1970s and served as technical director of the Austrian Ski Federation between 1972 and 1976. As well, for many years Sailer was the race director of the prestigious Hahnenkamm downhill in his hometown of Kitzbühel.

In 1985, Sailer was awarded the Olympic Order by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and in 1999 he was awarded Austria's sportsman of the century.

He died of cancer in Innsbruck, Austria in 2009 at the age of 73.

Spiess, Ulrich

  • AT-SU001
  • Persona
  • b. August 15, 1955

Ulrich Spiess is a former alpine ski racer from Austria. He participated in the 1977-1983 World Cups.

Weirather, Harti

  • AT-WH001
  • Persona
  • b. January 25, 1958

Harti Weirather is an Austrian former alpine ski racer who specialized in the downhill. In the early 1980s he won six World Cup downhill races, the 1982 World Championships, and the 1981 World Cup season title. His World Cup win at Kitzbuhel in 1982 was the first ever finishing time for that course under two minutes, and stood as the record for ten years. He currently runs a business consultancy firm in Liechtenstein with his wife, former World Cup champion Hanni Wenzel.

Wirnsberger, Peter

  • AT-WP001
  • Persona
  • b. September 13, 1958

Peter Wirnsberger is an Austrian former alpine ski racer who won eight World Cup races. He was a silver medalist at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympic Winter Games.

Wirth, Patrick

  • AT-WP002
  • Persona
  • b. September 17, 1971

Patrick Wirth is a retired Austrian alpine skier who competed in the 1993 Labatt Blue Men's Downhill and Super G at Whistler Mountain.

Percy, Karen

  • CA-AB-PK001
  • Persona
  • b. October 10, 1966

Karen Percy is a retired Canadian skier from Edmonton, Alberta. At the height of her career she was one of the world's top female alpine skiers, with a total of 25 top ten World Cup finishes, four World Championships, and 7 consecutive Canadian National Championships. She won bronze in Downhill and Super G at the 1988 Olympic Winter Games in Calgary, for which she was Canada's flag bearer at the closing ceremony. She became a Member of the Order of Canada the same year, and was inducted into the Canadian Ski Hall of Fame in 1992.

Read, Ken

  • CA-AB-RK001
  • Persona
  • b. November 6, 1955

Kenneth ‘Ken’ John Read is a former alpine downhill ski racer and member of the Crazy Canucks from 1973 to 1983. He participated in the 1976 and 1980 Winter Olympics and the 1978 and 1982 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships. Read was the first Canadian and North American to win a men’s Downhill World Cup race, and the first non-European to win the Austrian downhill Hahnenkamm and the Swiss race Lauberhorn. In total, he won four downhill World Cup races during his career. He was named Canada’s Athlete of the Year in 1978, Canadian Male Amateur Athlete of the Year in 1980, a Member of the Order of Canada in 1991, a Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame inductee in 1985, a Canada’s Skiing Hall of Fame inductee in 1986, and an International Ski Racing Hall of Fame inductee in 2010. He and his fellow Crazy Canucks were inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame in 2006.

After his retirement, Read continued to contribute greatly to Canadian sport. He became a broadcaster with CBC TV Sports, launched the “Breath of Life” Ski Challenge to raise money for cystic fibrosis, served as President and CEO of Alpine Canada Alpin (2002-2008), worked with youth in the Alberta Alpine Ski Association (2008-2010), was named Winter Sport Director of Own The Podium (2010-2013), founded and chaired the Canadian Olympic Association Athletes Council, served as Chef de Mission for the 1992 Canadian Team to Barcelona, sat on the FIS Alpine Committee Executive Board (starting 1998), and more. He currently resides in Calgary, where he grew up.

Burgi, Bernard

  • CA-BC-BB028
  • Persona
  • [fl. 1960s?]

Bernard Burgi was a well-known skier who tested the runs and snow conditions on Powder Mountain before its opening.

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