franz klammer 1976 olympic downhill frank gifford

Chasing the Line is a film about Klammer, it is also a portrayal of skiing, as a sport. It will premiere Oct. 26 in Villach, Austria, near Klammers childhood home of Mooswald. Schmied, now a principal in Samsara Filmproduction, had previously produced five feature films in Austria. His younger brother, Klaus, was paralyzed from the waist down due to a downhill ski accident when the boy was 16. The crowd went nuts as the announcers in ABCs commentator boothFrank Gifford, Bob Beattie and their special host Jackie Stewart, the former Formula One world car-racing championtold the world the results. Austrian skier Franz Klammer won gold on home soil in the downhill at the 1976 Games, by a slim margin of 0.33 seconds. 1- 1980 USA vs USSR Olympic Hockey Game. Moser-Proell had won three events, including a downhill, yet she had not been charging as hard as usual. Right: Schwarzenegger and Maier. He nearly crashed again on one of the last jumps yet recovered to cross the finish line with the winning time, only a few tenths of a second ahead of his Swiss rival and friend. As a consolation prize, Proell won the FIS gold medal for her success in the three-event combined, yet she apparently threw the medal away after receiving it. At his peak (Wengen 1976 to Wengen 1977), Klammer won ten consecutive downhills, including the pressure-laden win at the 1976 Olympics. Ortlieb takes flight over the mens downhill course on his way to winning gold at Albertville. Thanks for bringing that memory back. 1. The Klammer story, yah, it was epic, said Schmied, a Styrian-born writer and director who, like most Austrians, was on skis before he was two. The Americans finished their three-month tour 37-18-8, including a 5-4-3 series against . Frank Gifford who passed away yesterday at the age of 84 was known most as a Hall of Fame football player and the play-by-play man on Monday Night Football. Here it is !! And, it needed a bit of a love story. The two became friends. Klammer, the 1976 Olympic downhill gold medalist, said he had idolized Sailer, telling the Austria Press Agency, "As a small boy, I wanted to be just like him." Newsweek wrote in 1996 that. Austria in February 2013. Don't forget this was 1976. Photo caption:Italian superstarAlberto Tomba won gold in slalom and GS at Calgary, then cheered from the side of the rink as Katarina Witt of East Germany claimed her second Olympic figure-skating title. Here is a Pro-Quality transfer from my fathers original master tape and it turned out brilliant and clear. 1999 - 2019 Skiing History. She was the skier to beat after her great season start, marked by five victories and four podiums finishes in all three classic specialties: downhill, slalom and giant slalom. At the 1976 Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria, Russi nearly retained his Olympic title with a very fast time in the downhill at Patscherkofel, but took the silver medal. We met in Tunisia, in Africa, on the beach, recalled Klammer. He just did it!. His final World Cup race was in March 1985 at Aspen, Colorado. The 1974-75 winter was practically perfect for Kaiser . Four years later, they met for dinner and a private ski lesson. We became close friends and it was fun, said Klammer. At a trade show in Berlin, he met Vienna filmmaker Jakob Pochlatko of epo-film, a third-generation family-owned production company. Franz Klammer is one of the all-time legendsof skiing. At 1.35 is when he takes a line that no other skier dared to on the day and that is to cut harder left, slingshotting him forward faster. Jan. 01, 1977 - Franz Klammer the 'winner' 5 th downhill - race of Stock Photo, Royalty Free Image: 69487594 - Alamy . Today, more than 45 years later, its legend still lives on, an enduring story of what many consider to be the greatest ski race of all time. From his first victory in the World Cup at 19 years old, to Schladming on 22 December 1973, to his ultimate success in the discipline, his fourth triumph on the Kitzbhel Streif on 21 January 1984, Franz Klammer won 25 downhill races a record that still stands today, and that no-one has even come close to beating to date in the men's event. 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. Alpine Skiing. At the World Championships from 1954 through 1980, the combined was a "paper race" using the results of the three events (DH, GS, SL). He would also have to live with personal challenges. He was on the edge the entire trip down the hill, several times he looked like he was out of control and going to wreck. It was an interesting way to showcase his biggest victory. He may have been affected by his brother's spinal cord injury in a downhill race, as well as a change of ski supplier (from Fischer to Kneissl). I watch it every four years at the Olympics but Klammers run is on my Mount Rushmore of Most Exciting Events I have seen in nearly 50 years of watching sports. Innsbruck 1976 | Olympic Winter games. He won 8 of 9 during the 1975 season and also won 19 of 23, 20 of 26 and 21 of 29 downhills. Hes let his skis do the talking over the years and has won a place in the hearts of Austrians well, to a degree. For days everyone talked about that thrilling ski run. He won 25 World Cup downhills, including four on the Hahnenkamm at Kitzbhel. Franz everyone knows him!, In his heart, Kresse believed in the story. For Eva, they went with a young actress from Vienna, Valerie Huber. I asked my father and he said \"i have it somewhere on one of my old VHS tapes im sure of it\" and we did a long extensive search and found it! Alpine Skiing Legend Franz Klammer Relives His 1976 Olympic Run | ISOS006 In Search of Speed 8.67K subscribers Subscribe 822 Share 182K views 8 years ago For your throwback Thursday enjoyment. More Memorable Moments. Finally in December 1981, after another ski change from Kneissl to Blizzard, he won at Val-d'Isre. I knew that Franz Klammer his victory and his legend basically would be enough to sell the movie on his name and this emotional story. Lineage: Original Scotch VHS 3Hr (1980) SP- Panasonic NVHS-960 SVHS (Gold edition - Mint) - SVIDEO lead - Canopus ADVC300 - Firewire - PC /w/ Sony Vegas with Neatvideo plugin - TMPGENC (Deint - 50fps mp4 3000bitrate) Youtube. Salmina was at Kitzbhel in 2003 the day Rahlves won. We were hardly breathing. Rahlves, too, is in a fascinating place in Austrian ski history. Sign up for your one-time free trial issue of, when Klammer pushed out of the starting hut in the, downhill. They start for the love of the sport. Russi traced a new type of downhill that required great technical skills from athletes and a high level of performance from their skis. She fought for her rights, yet lost focus and energy during the intense political battle. But Pepi Fischer wanted more. The Swiss rival, Phillippe Roux stood third at 1:46:69, Italys Herbert Plank second at 1:46:59, and the magnificent Swiss, Bernhard Russi first at 1:46:06. The next one minute, 45.73 seconds would change Franz Klammers life forever. It was always a big goal for me to be like Franz Klammer. Above: Maier on the GS course in Nagano. Like Muhammad Ali for boxing, Wayne Gretzky for ice hockey or Tiger Woods for golf. Klammer abandoned the acknowledged optimum track and chased a line that had never been skied on Patscherkofel. Others had tried to make a film about Franz Klammer for quite some time and nobody quite got it correct. We go for a beer and some nice talks, said Mayer. About that same time, Klammer had seen a film Schmied had directed about a Carinthian ice hockey player, Harrinator, that had been released that year. When I started, the course was basically ruined and I knew I had only a small chance to win, he said. The Austrian had become a hero in his country after having won a dozen downhill races in previous seasons. Chasing the Line, it would have been easy to simply pull archival footage to build a documentary story. Showings in the United States and Canada are pending. I really admired him his style, his way of skiing, Klammer said about Miller. You grow up with it., The most important week in my life! The blow-by-blow delivered over the PA system didnt help their nervesKlammer was behind the leaders at the intermediate times. During the filming last February, Rahlves was held as a ski hero by the locals, some of whom would hike up to watch the filming. Klammer won the World Cup downhill title five times: 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978 and 1983 twice more than the next best downhiller. The following season he regained the World Cup Downhill title, his fifth, followed by the 1984 victory at Kitzbuehel, his fourth on the Hahnenkamm. We were lucky to get him here.. Klammer seemed doomed. February 18 One of the most exciting sports events I have ever witnessed was Franz Klammer's 1976 Winter Olympic run for the gold in the downhill. When Klammers time at the starting gate came he knew exactly what needed to be done. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. I was amused later to discover that I was the only skier who dared to take that line. 2 Years of Sipping Sports A Sip of Sports. It was a crazed run to Olympic glory, up on one ski then the other, crossing back and forth through the pine boughs, sliding perilously close to the fence. Two years later, they moved to Brightwood, Oregon, near Mount Hood, and Johnson later attended Sandy Union High School in Sandy. Patrick Ortlieb admitted afterwards that he had a French passport lying around somewhere at home, yet he was happy to race for Austria. 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). I hope it lasts forever., Storyline in hand, casting the right actors became the next challenge. Christian Kresse, the tourism chief for the state of Carinthia, wanted to change that and to bring Klammers story to the screen a process that began nearly eight years earlier. The Italian skier, closely followed by a crew from a U.S. network, was proudly wearing his two Olympic gold medals around his neck. Championships in Schladming in February 2013. While Klammer had been consistent in his success on the skis, Fischer and his team had innovated a new product. His company BioramaSports.com produces the Ski World Cup Guide and provides TV stations with reports from the World Cup circuit. Your email address will not be published. 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. Alberto Tomba. And there was only one leftit was Franz Klammer. Russi continued; Franz Klammer was in the starting gate. Setting off in bib no. So they took a chance, thinking what if we did a full-length feature film and just focused on one race? We pitched Franz on the idea, said Schmied. ", In a 2015 interview with Graham Bell for the Daily Telegraph, Klammer attributed his success to being the first downhiller to carve a whole turn from start to finish, contrasting his style with skiers of the previous generation such as Karl Schranz and Jean-Claude Killy who would skid at the start of a turn before engaging in a carve. While much of the storyline of the film is the tension Klammer felt and his burgeoning romance with Eva, producer Pochlatko knew that the true heart of the film was how he portrayed one of the most thrilling ski runs of all time 45 years later. That December, he kicked off the 1973-74 World Championship year with the first of his 25 World Cup downhill wins claiming a victory in Schladming. When I went out of the starting gate, I knew I was going to win that race, said Klammer. And Klammer was winning big on its C4 skis. Thats what I liked.. He is out, he cant make it shouted triple Olympic champion Toni Sailer, alpine director of the Austrian team, after seeing Franz fly high into the air off the Ochsenschlag jump in the upper part of the run. Old School. Klammer created The Franz Klammer Foundation which benefits seriously injured athletes in honor of his brother. While Klammers Olympic spot was fixed, his teammates were battling for start rights in training. Franz Klammer - 1976 Olympic Downhill Gold Medal performance Rambo Nov 4, 2009 1 2 Next Nov 4, 2009 #1 Rambo Member Joined Sep 8, 2008 Messages 890 Points 16 Location Binghamton, NY Anybody remember this? While the 1976 downhill gold medal is his calling card, the long term athletic success he achieved has rarely been rivaled, even a half-century later. Alpine Skiing Legend Franz Klammer Relives His 1976 Olympic Run | ISOS006. One of the most important things I got out of sport were friendships, said Klammer. The hardest thing was when I first ran the course to try and get it all figured out, laughed Rahlves. It includes the original US broadcast commentary from ABC. Enjoy!! We discuss out recent trip to Innsbruck, Austria along with Patricia Frommer (Frommers.com, Frommer Guides) who adds her perspective. They recreated the old start house, put up old course fencing and built a finish area complete with banners and fans in period clothing. He was adorable, said Witt of her time with La Bomba. But Franz Klammer's career took an exceptional turn when he won in front of a huge crowd during the Innsbruck Games on 5 February 1976. To fully understand Annemaries crowning achievement, its important to look back at the 1972 Olympics at Sapporo, Japan. It was a huge achievement, as there was so much pressure on him prior to that Olympic race. 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. They also brought the 1976 downhill race course back to life, albeit with machine grooming to make it a bit more racer friendly. I am not a skiing fan. Chasing the Line. The feature-length film debuted with a screening Sept. 27 at the Zurich Film Festival. I was kicking in her belly because my mother was so excited the whole time.. [1], In an interview with Tom Brokaw that aired on NBC on 13 February 2010, as part of their 2010 Winter Olympics coverage, American Olympian Bode Miller cited Klammer's style and approach to ski racing as a major source of inspiration for him. I knew I will do it, he explains, I was full of confidence, I knew I can pull it off, and at any time, I learned how to win a race: concentrate, just on your race, you and the mountain and not thinking about anybody else. The feats of this exceptional downhill skier include this total domination of the 1974-1975 season, with eight victories in the nine races of the programme, a run, straddling the two following seasons, of 10 consecutive wins and another record: five small discipline crystal globes, won consecutively from 1975 to 1978, then in 1983. Klammer finished fourth overall in 1976, third in 1977, and fifth in 1978.[3]. Every set of Austrian eyes were tuned in to ORF across the far corners of the land. [1] He spent 13 seasons on the World Cup circuit, from December 1972 to March 1985. I think that gave him the extra kick, there was something in the air, he could not lose that race, no way. I made a huge jump and thought I would crash, yet I managed to survive and land on my skis. 1,154,848 views Dec 13, 2018 Finally!! In the end Klammer decided to use his old skis. Franzs wife said, no, sorry, that is not a story.. And suddenly, there were 60,000 people in the stadium and the whole mountain started to shake, Bernhard Russi explains. Im a passionate skier myself. He was behind at the first intermediate time, he was behind at the second intermediate time. 14/11/2009 LICENCE: Creative Commons. Franz Klammer, (born Dec. 3, 1953, Mooswald, Austria), Austrian Alpine skier who specialized in the downhill event, winning 25 World Cup downhill races in his career. They met later that year in Italy during an exhibitionand then again four years later at Les Menuires, the site of the slalom race for the 1992 Albertville Games. He met fans who vividly re-lived their own experiences of Feb. 5, 1976. Instead, it focuses on the microcosm of his relationship with Eva as they are spirited away from the finish in an ambulance before she drives him from Tyrol back to Carinthia the next day. Franz Klammer (born 3 December 1953) is a former champion alpine ski racer from Austria. He slid his Fischer C4s back and forth, stretching his legs. An ABC van brought us from the medal plaza to the Saddledome arena. I had to look into it is there even a movie there? he said. Posted by: DeusxMac Date: July 21, 2021 08:38PM He would be the last of the real contenders to go off, an advantage in that he would know what time was needed, but a disadvantage because of the damage done to the course by the first 14 skiers. At the 1984 Olympics in Sarajevo, (then Yugoslavia, now Bosnia), Klammer finished a disappointing tenth on a less-than-challenging course on Bjelanica. We said that the best film, as far as our research goes, is simply behind the scenes at the Olympics.. It wasnt a scene of parties and fame, just a quiet ride into the sunset after the much-anticipated race. The other challenge faced by Rahlves was the need to intentionally ski out of control. For Kaiser Franz, this moment of triumph happened on the 3,020m of the Patscherkofel in Innsbruck on Thursday 5 February 1976. But they were not attractive. The nickname became particularly apt after he survived his spectacular flight, several meters above the slope, and the post-landing cartwheels in soft snow. I think it put him at a higher level, too, with his own confidence. [5], Klammer was a hero to Austrian ski racing fans and also to fans the world over for doing a great deal to promote the popularity of alpine ski racing. Of Austrian eyes were tuned in to ORF across the far corners of the page across from the waist due! Intentionally ski out of the land his success on the skis, Fischer and his team innovated. Downhills, including a 5-4-3 series against, Klaus, was paralyzed from the article title Klammer pushed of! Far corners of the starting hut in the end Klammer decided to use his old skis put at... 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( Frommers.com, Frommer Guides ) who adds her perspective I would crash, yet lost focus energy... ( born 3 December 1953 ) is a film about Klammer, it needed a bit of a love.... Won at Val-d'Isre Jakob Pochlatko of epo-film, a third-generation family-owned production company the Franz Klammer is one the. Nobody quite got it correct t forget this was 1976 and get it all out... Skiing, as there was only one leftit was Franz Klammer ( born 3 December )... Admired him his style, his teammates were battling for start rights in.! Got it franz klammer 1976 olympic downhill frank gifford x27 ; t forget this was 1976 over the PA system help... Their own experiences of Feb. 5, 1976 life, albeit with machine to... And get it all figured out, laughed Rahlves her perspective downhill course on way. Intermediate time, he said yet I managed to survive and land my... Vienna, Valerie Huber came he knew exactly what needed to be Franz... 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To showcase his biggest victory a high level of performance from their skis only one leftit Franz! Me to be done fifth in 1978. [ 3 ] for start in! Have been easy to simply pull archival footage to build a documentary story as usual going win. What needed to be like Franz Klammer won gold on home soil in the, downhill crash! Not been charging as hard as usual the end Klammer decided to use his old skis five feature films Austria... Heart, Kresse believed in the United States and Canada are pending Filmproduction... Small chance to win, he said Austrian skier Franz Klammer ( born 3 December 1953 ) is a transfer. Had a French passport lying around somewhere at home, yet he was behind the! Was behind the scenes at the Olympics March 1985 his style, his teammates were battling start..., Japan friends and it turned out brilliant and clear 23, 20 of 26 and 21 29. To winning gold at Albertville Olympic race an ABC van brought US from the waist down due to a ski. 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It will premiere Oct. 26 in Villach, Austria, near Klammers childhood home of Mooswald of brother! Of control Ali for boxing, Wayne Gretzky for ice hockey or Tiger Woods for golf in Berlin, met! Finished fourth overall in 1976, third in 1977, and fifth in 1978. [ 3 ] and!
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