article by Nicola Pucci
Sometimes sport can be ruthless, even with its most representative champions. Take the Habsburg Karl Schranz for examplea sort of divinity in House Austria like the other great one, the “kaiser” Franz Klammer, who has achieved such a skiing parable as to include him among the greatest of all time, in terms of palmares and competitive longevity, but which lacks the endorsement that more than any other gives credit to the greatness of an athlete: Olympic gold.
Schranz, a Tyrolean from Sankt Anton am Arlberg, where he was born on 18 November 1938, in fact, he truly won everything, at every latitude. Starting with two editions of the World Cup, in 1969 and 1970with the corollary of nine partial successes (5 in downhill, also winning the specialty cup in the two years, and 4 in giant slalom, being content to top the ranking only in 1969), to which must be added another three victories in downhill in 1971 (Val d ‘Isere) and 1972 (double on the Kutzbuhel Streif on 14 and 15 January) for a global total of 12 victories in the main Alpine event.
Even at the World Championships the Austrian was able to command respect, to the point that at the Badgastein races in 1958, for which he was not called up, perhaps still too young to have his say, he acted as a trailblazer for the special slalom race (certainly not his favorite discipline) achieving the best time in both heats! A little bad, four years later, 1962, in Chamonix he promptly redeemed himself with the victory in the downhill (beating the Frenchman Emile Viollat), silver in giant (beaten by just 15 cents by compatriot Egon Zimmermann) and fourth place in slalom (just 3 cents from Gerhard Nnning’s bronze), also making the combined gold his own. In 1966, in Portillo, Chile, he performed less well, having to settle for bronze in the giant slalom. (behind the two transalpines Guy Perillat and Georges Mauduit), to then seal his world championship CV in Val Gardena, 1970, when he puts the gold medal around his neck again between the wide doors (preceding Werner Bleiner and the Swiss Dumeng Giovanoli).
If you add all this goodness to God the congruous spoils collected in the great classics of world skiing before the advent of the World Cup (1966), for example 12 victories at the prestigious trophy Arlberg-Kandahar (Chamonix, Sankt Anton am Arlberg, Garmisch e Sestriere), 6 al Lauberhorn (Wengen), 4 each’Cockscomb (Kitzbuhel) and 3 to 3-Three (Madonna di Campiglio), as well as having also won on the famous slopes of Adelboden, Val d’Isere, Megeve and Meribel… well, if he isn’t the absolute number 1 in Austrian skiing, tell me who could legitimately boast that label?
In fact, the Olympic gold that Schranz chased throughout a career that lasted between 1956 and 1972 is missing. With a first chance at five hoops in Squaw Valley, in 1960, where, however, he doesn’t go any further seventh place in the downhill which celebrates the triumph of Jean Vuarnet, and then presents itself with the stigmata of the champion and in the dress of big favorite four years later in Innsbruck, registered for the three races on the calendar. We start on January 30th with the descent on the Patscherkofel, but Schranz, bib number 13, peppers his performance with an unusual series of errors that relegate him to only 11th place, 2″82 behind Egon Zimmermann. And if in slalom he certainly doesn’t fare better with an eighth place which he can’t really do credit to his undoubted abilities as a multi-purpose skier, to get an Olympic medal Schranz has to fall back on the giant, when, last to start in the first merit group, he is second behind the French François Bonlieuwho beat him by 38 hundredths and would then be the author, precisely in slalom, of a memorable golden double.
All that remains is the illusion of Grenoble 1968, when at the last Olympic performance of his career the Austrian champion asks for definitive consecration. But in the days of the apotheosis of Jean-Claude Killy, who drops a majestic golden hat trick, after a disappointing fifth place in the downhill and sixth in the giant slalom, he tries to break the bank in the slalomon a climatic nightmare day, marked by fog and wind that make it difficult even to identify the doors to turn around, however third time in the first heat, 32 hundredths behind the Frenchman and also behind Alfred Matt, who precedes him by just 1 hundredth. Schranz would seem to be in contention for the victory, as certified by the time of the second descent, 49″53 which would put him ahead of everyone, but he was instead disqualified for missing the 19th gate. What happens, in fact, is that the Austrian interrupts his performance at the 21st gate, protesting for having been disturbed by a track attendant dressed in black (perhaps a policeman who according to the Austrian Federation would have deliberately interfered to ensure Killy’s victory), obtaining to repeat the descent. Time, in fact, would reward his effort but the Appeal Jury confirms the definitive disqualification, and for the Austrian his last Olympic golden dream vanishes.
In addition to the damage, also the insult, one might say, because even in Sapporo, in 1972, for what could have been the Olympics of farewell from the activity, he was unable to compete as he was banned for professionalisma few days before taking to the slopes for the downhill of which he was the big favorite, due to his contracts with ski manufacturers to test and design their equipment. Epilogue of a legendary career.