- Karl Schranz
Karl Schranz (born
18 November 1938 inSt. Anton ,Tyrol ) is a former alpine skier fromAustria .Karl Schranz was one of the best alpine ski racers ever. In his long and illustrious career (1958-72) he won twenty major downhills, many major GS races and a few major slaloms. Late in his career he was the successor to Killy as Overall World Cup champion (1969,1970). He was also World Cup Downhill(1969,1970) and GS(1969) champion. Had the World Cup series begun ten years earlier he would be much better known. The Olympics were unfortunately his nemesis. He was injured in 1960, but started anyway. His disqualification in 1972 for acknowledging that he was not a pure amateur (like all other top racers) caused a furor and the reform of the IOC. He won a silver in GS in 1964, despite being ill with the flu, He won no medals in 1968, where his first slalom run was the fastest and his second was interfered with, by a race official stepping on the course. Forced to do his second run over again, he finished first overall, only to be disqualified by a 3-2 jury decision, because a second race official later claimed he had missed a gate prior to his being interfered with by the other race official. As Killy had already won gold in the downhill and giant slalom, 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 Sailer's 1956 sweep. His World Championship record (then held every four years, like the Olympics) was better: gold/DH/62 and gold/GS/70. All in all, he must be considered one of the giants of the sport.
Overall
Individual races
References
*cite book|first=Karl|last=Schranz|title=Mein „Olympiasieg“. Aufgezeichnet von Stefan König und Gerhard Zimmer|publisher=Herbig Verlag|location=Munich|year=2002|id=ISBN 3-7766-2308-X
External links
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