Regular contributor Gary Tomlinson was very quick to correctly identify Franz Klammer as the winner of the men’s downhill.
That meant that Klammer had made up over a half second in the last third of the course. He let the skis run taking the fastest line and just hung on! When he crossed the finish line he beat Russi’s time by. All downhillers know that to win you have to take chances and for the last third of that Olympic downhill, Klammer did nothing but take chances. 2 seconds behind Russi’s time two-thirds of the way down the course. He was fast, but a couple of mistakes including catching too much air off a bump left him.
Klammer in his yellow speed-suit sprang out of the starting gate and the mostly Austrian crowd of 60,000 began to roar. Russi had won the downhill gold at the 1972 Olympics and appeared to have a good time on the Innsbruck course since he led the nearest competitor by more than half a second. On race day after 14 racers, Bernhard Russi of Switzerland was in the lead. This was generally seen as a disadvantage since the course would degrade with each racer. In those days the top seeds drew for the first 15 slots so Klammer would be the last of the top seeds to race. The men’s downhill was the first alpine skiing event held at the Olympics and Klammer drew the 15 th starting position. By the way, the one downhill he didn’t win that season was because he lost a ski! The previous season Klammer had won 8 of the 9 World Cup downhills making him the prohibitive favorite at the Olympics. Most of the home country pressure in 1976 fell on a 22 year-old downhiller from Mooswald, Austria, named Franz Klammer. You may recall that Denver was supposed to host the 1976 Olympics, but that’s a story for a future column. The same was true in 1976 when Innsbruck, Austria hosted the Winter Olympics. When events like the World Championships are held in Austria, the Austrian skiers are under great pressure to perform. For my taste I would like to have some schuss and then make a turn, have downhills like they used to be.Biddle Duke’s article last week about the World Championships being held in Schladming Austria highlighted how seriously Austrians take Alpine ski racing. But that’s how they make downhill courses nowadays - it’s one turn after another, one turn after another. It is clear he is nostalgic for the old days of ski racing, and the relatively benign course at the Jeongseon Alpine Center, designed by his old racing rival Bernhard Russi of Switzerland, is not to his taste. At 64, he still cuts an imposing, silver-haired figure, resplendent in green lederhosen and bright red socks at the Austria House where the Alpine nation makes its Olympic hangout. In his pomp, Klammer was renowned for the fearless abandon with which he flew down the slopes.
The route to victory, he said, would be “not making mistakes, not missing a gate, not missing a turn. So you have to be smooth and still let it run.” Here it’s easier, it’s more grinding, you don’t have the advantage when you have guts and when you really attack it. “The downhill in Sochi was very, very good for him because it was steep, it was rough and at that time he was the best in those conditions. No man has won back-to-back Olympic downhill golds and the Austrian said conditions here would suit Mayer less than they did four years ago. But he always makes some mistakes, so when he can avoid mistakes he will be up there and he could defend his title,” Klammer told Reuters in an interview on the eve of the Olympic race. He also rates the chances of his countryman Matthias Mayer winning a second successive downhill gold - although with one important caveat. “He’s really strong, he’s my favorite but also the Austrians are quite good, so if everything goes right we will make a medal, definitely,” said the 1976 Olympic champion, whose name is still synonymous with the glamour and danger of Alpine ski racing. PYEONGCHANG (Reuters) - Austrian great Franz Klammer says the winner of the men’s downhill in Pyeongchang will be the skier who hits every turn right and makes the fewest mistakes - and he thinks that will be Switzerland’s Beat Feuz.