When the NZZ remembered the pioneering deeds of the late speed skater Franz Krienbühl at the end of 2023, the German-born Günter Traub complained – and another interesting life story came to light. Traub once even had Niki Lauda in a stranglehold.
Günter Traub broke world records in speed skating in the 1960s – after his career as a top athlete, he moved to St. Moritz to offer “Alpine movement training seminars”.
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Shortly before his 85th birthday, Günter Traub felt the urge to put his life’s work in order. He was triggered by an article in the NZZ that appeared at the end of last year. It was about the Swiss speed skater Franz Krienbühl and was called “The Man in the Hooded Suit”.
Krienbühl had achieved amazing success at an advanced age as an athlete and was considered an inventor and pioneer in the scene; Thanks to him, ice skates with adjustable blades and skin-tight hooded suits appeared. But now Günter Traub comes onto the scene, a qualified sports teacher and sports scientist from St. Moritz.
The native German contacted the NZZ and said that, as a close friend of Krienbühl, he had been significantly involved in his pioneering activities. He slowed down the biological aging process and provided important input on material issues, but unfortunately “unsolvable misunderstandings” arose between him and Krienbühl over time.
Günter Traub, a graduate of the Cologne Sports University, also sees himself as the developer and inventor of the sliding board, a training instrument that can be used to simulate speed skating movements off the ice. He says that not only Krienbühl benefited from this idea each summer, but also the American Eric Heiden, who celebrated a historic triumph with five gold medals at the 1980 Olympic Games in Lake Placid.
One thing is certain: Traub and Krienbühl were prominent figures in their sport in the sixties and seventies, their achievements are documented here and there, both took part in the Olympic Games. Traub revived speed skating in Germany as an athlete and set world records in the large four-event competition. In his shadow, his younger brother Jürgen also achieved respectable times.
The young Günter Traub at the 1963 World Speed Skating Championships.
Keystone-France / Gamma-Rapho
However, in this fight for fame, it is no longer possible to determine who invented what in the “Krienbühl case” or who provided whom with tips. Franz Krienbühl died 22 years ago; For a long time he had been very secretive towards his companions. What both had once neglected to do, even though they were confident in their actions: patenting their ideas.
23 broken bones: the fateful accident in a swimming pool in Los Angeles
Günter Traub is still in good health and asks for coffee in his St. Moritz attic apartment, his wife has baked a chocolate cake – and it becomes clear that Traub’s vita has much more to offer than splitting hairs. It is the story of a man who has always been ambitiously committed to the pursuit of health and youth.
Cuts have turned Traub’s life around several times. There was the advent of folding skates, which revolutionized speed skating, which is why he became interested in this sport again in 1999 at the age of sixty. Traub began chasing records and world titles in his age groups; it was only last November that he set another world record; In the recent past he fought duels with a polar explorer from Norway who was now almost ninety years old.
And above all there is this accident in 1969 that changed his life, as Traub says: Back then, as a coach for American speed skaters, he tried an Auerbach somersault in a swimming pool in Los Angeles. The three-meter board broke and he hit the edge of the pool with full force. The diagnosis: 23 broken bones.
The suspicion of paraplegia was dispelled. But he was in a cast from head to toe and had to be fed artificially for a while. To show that he is still suffering from after-pains, Traub wraps his hands around the journalist’s arm. The fact that his hands are so cold has to do with the fact that almost all feeling had left them at the time.
After his accident, Traub developed his own rehabilitation measures using the knowledge from his studies. And he remembered previous altitude training in the Engadin. What led him to move to St. Moritz a good fifty years ago to launch “Alpine movement training seminars” there.
His offer: a training program over around two weeks that improves a person’s oxygen absorption capacity and thus their endurance performance at altitude. A “well-measured interplay between tension and relaxation,” which included carbon dioxide mineral baths or hatha yoga. The slogans in the media were: “On your toes with Traub” or “Fit stress in the champagne air”. One of Traub’s mottos: “Die young, but as late as possible.”
Günter Traub (right) instructs an Italian speed skater in the early 1970s.
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He trimmed the Formula 1 world champions Lauda, Stewart and Schumacher – they should tire less quickly
Word of the offer got around, even in high society. Traub pulls out folders containing pictures of all the celebrities who have had their trims done by him, such as King Juan Carlos of Spain, the star conductor Herbert von Karajan and the artist Niki de Saint Phalle. He found customers from top-class sports primarily in Formula 1; Traub presents photos of himself with world champions Niki Lauda, Jackie Stewart and Michael Schumacher.
One shot shows him putting Lauda in a kind of stranglehold on the racetrack shortly before the start of a Grand Prix. Traub says he used chiropractic tricks to loosen the Austrian’s muscles. The aim of the training of the Formula 1 drivers was to ensure that they fatigued less quickly in the races.
In the media, Traub was referred to as the “pacemaker of St. Moritz” or the “Doc Holiday of the leisure society”, and the participants in his courses were called “Traubians”. Sometimes Traub told a reporter about his encounters with celebrities, for example that he was once invited by the conductor von Karajan to the box of honor at the Salzburg Easter Festival and sat near German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt.
Traub was quoted in an article saying that Schmidt, “somewhat stressed, dozed off briefly during the quiet passages of Haydn’s ‘Symphony with the Bang’,” but from the moment the timpani struck he “listened wide awake.” Traub was and is a shrewd marketer.
Günter Traub (left) trains the English pop musician Les Humphries in the Engadine in 1973.
Peter Bischoff / Getty
At the then Parkhotel Kurhaus in St. Moritz, where Traub first held his seminars, he also met the Swiss Heidi. She became his assistant – and his wife. He gave her a racing bike for her wedding. Later, their joint seminars took place at the Carlton Hotel, where the participants started the day with casual stretching and relaxed under the chandeliers in the ballroom later in the afternoon; Advertisements for the seminars were also placed in the NZZ.
His parents made prostheses for war veterans
When asked what made him successful, Traub replied: “That I never lost faith in myself. Because I wasn’t spared from difficult situations either.” On the one hand, there was the accident in the swimming pool in Los Angeles, on the other hand, he suffered violent falls on ice rinks, an artificial hip joint was inserted on his left side, and, in particular, he had to overcome urinary bladder carcinoma.
Traub grew up in Schweinfurt, a German city that was heavily attacked during World War II; He experienced the war years as a boy and remembers how they “climbed 96 steps each into a cellar” to protect themselves from the bombardment. His parents worked in the orthopedics and medical supplies business and made prostheses for war disabled people. The young Günter found fulfillment in speed skating, where he raced around the ears of the others. His colleagues called him “Hermes, the flying messenger of the gods,” he once reported to a newspaper.
In the Federal Army, Traub was stationed as a mountain infantry not far from Inzell, which was to establish itself as the center of German speed skating. Initially, the regular competition track was located on the frozen Frillensee, which was hardly hit by a ray of sunshine in winter. Traub sometimes made his rounds there at night, which earned him the nickname “Moonlight Runner.”
How much time has passed since then is shown by the fact that, due to global warming, many natural ice rinks on which Traub used to attack best times no longer exist.
Traub took part in a racing event at the Nürburgring in 1971, in the presence of the German ski racer Rosi Mittermaier.
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Ms. Heidi may not really trust the resignation
Now the qualified sports teacher seems to feel a certain tiredness after all his efforts. Günter Traub says at his kitchen table that his speed skating career recently came to an end because negative experiences had piled up after the last age group world record.
At the end of January he was at a Masters competition in Italy, in Baselga di Piné. And when the light suddenly went out in the hotel stairwell, he had to use all his strength after a misstep to avoid falling down. This mishap and bronchitis robbed him of so much energy that he fell in the following races.
He also had to be annoyed at the German championships by a referee who rudely ordered him off the track. At his age, it’s normal that you need a little more time to run out immediately after a race. Traub understood this as an “attack on my speed skating life’s achievements”.
His wife Heidi doesn’t really trust his resignation. When Traub officially announced this, she interjected from the background with a smile: “You’ve already said that once, Günter.” The genetic prerequisites for continuing your career should actually be present; his mother lived to be a hundred years old.
But more than new sporting goals, Traub seems to care about being able to put right what will become his legacy. The thing with Franz Krienbühl, the “man in the hooded suit,” simply didn’t leave him alone. The inventor is dead, long live the inventor!