Karl Schranz

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Medal record
Karl Schranz
Men's Alpine skiing
Competitor for  Austria
Olympic Games
Silver	1964 Innsbruck	Giant Slalom
World Championships
Gold	1962 Chamonix	Downhill
Gold	1962 Chamonix	Combined
Gold	1970 Val Gardena	Giant Slalom
Silver	1962 Chamonix	Giant Slalom
Bronze	1966 Portillo	Giant Slalom

Karl Schranz (born 18 November 1938 in St. Anton, Tyrol) is a former alpine skier from Austria.

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.

[edit] Overall

[edit] Individual races

Date	Location	Race
December 12, 1968	Val-d'Isère	Giant Slalom
11 January 1969	Wengen	Downhill
18 January 1969	Kitzbühel	Downhill
February 1, 1969	St. Anton	Downhill
March 15, 1969	Mont Saint-Anne	Giant Slalom
January 5, 1970	Adelboden	Giant Slalom
January 23, 1970	Megève	Downhill
February 1, 1970	Garmisch-Partenkirchen	Downhill
February 10, 1970	Val Gardena	Giant Slalom
December 12, 1971	Val-d'Isère	Downhill
14 January 1972	Kitzbühel	Downhill
15 January 1972	Kitzbühel	Downhill

[edit] References

• Schranz, Karl (2002). Mein „Olympiasieg“. Aufgezeichnet von Stefan König und Gerhard Zimmer. Munich: Herbig Verlag. ISBN 3-7766-2308-X. 

[edit] External links

• Karl Schranz in the German National Library catalogue

Awards
Preceded by Toni Sailer	Austrian Sportsman of the Year 1959	Succeeded by Ernst Hinterseer
Preceded by Heinrich Thun	Austrian Sportsman of the Year 1962	Succeeded by Heinrich Thun
Preceded by Liese Prokop	Austrian Sportspersonality of the year 1970	Succeeded by Ilona Gusenbauer

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