Christl Cranz

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Olympic medal record
Women’s Alpine Skiing
Gold	1934 Garmisch-Partenkirchen	Combined

Christl Franziska Antonia Cranz-Borchers (July 1, 1914 – September 28, 2004) was a German alpine skier. Crantz was the dominating skier of the 1930s winning twelve world championship titles between 1934 and 1939. At the 1936 Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen she won the Alpine skiing combined competition (slalom and downhill).

Cranz was born 1914 in Brussels. After the break-out of World War I, Cranz and her family fled from Belgium to Traifelberg near Reutlingen. There Cranz learnt skiing. Afterward the family moved to Grindelwald and Freiburg.

Alongside her apprenticeship as trainer and philologist she started a successful skiing career. In 1934 she won all titles at the German Championship. At the world championship in St. Anton she won in the slalom and in the combined competition and was second in downhill (after Swiss Anny Rüegg). She won all titles at the world championships in 1937 (Chamonix ) and 1939 (Zakopane). To this day Cranz remains the most successful competitor at Alpine World Skiing Championships with twelve gold and three silver medals.

At the 1936 Winter Olympics Cranz won the newly established alpine combined competition after a spectacular race. After a crash in the downhill competition Cranz was 19 seconds behind Laila Schou Nilsen (Norway), but she managed to win after two outstanding slalom races (ahead of Käthe Grasegger (Germany) and Schou Nilsen.

At the 1941 world championship in Cortina d'Ampezzo Cranz won three additional titles and resigned. Taking place during World War II only with Germany-friendly athletes the championship was not acknowledged by the International Skiing Federation.

In 1943 Cranz married Adolf Borchers. After the end of the war she was arrested because of her collaboration with the Nazis and was forced to do farmwork for eleven months. Cranz fled into the American Occupation Zone in 1947. Later she found a skiing school with her husband which she led until 1987. Cranz was admitted to the Hall of fame of international women sports.

Aged 90, Cranz died 2004 in Oberstaufen-Steibis, Germany.

[edit] External links

Works by and about Christl Cranz in the German National Library catalogue

Olympic Champions in Women's Alpine Combined
1936: Christl Cranz \| 1948: Trude Beiser \| 1988: Anita Wachter \| 1992: Petra Kronberger \| 1994: Pernilla Wiberg \| 1998: Katja Seizinger \| 2002: Janica Kostelić \| 2006: Janica Kostelić