Karl Schranz - Olympics

Olympics

The Olympics were unfortunately his nemesis. His disqualification from his fourth Olympics 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. In his first Olympics at age 21, Schranz was injured in 1960, but started anyway and finished seventh in both the downhill and giant slalom. He won a silver medal in giant slalom in 1964 at Innsbruck, despite being ill with the flu. He won no medals in 1968 at Grenoble, where his first slalom run (in the thick fog) was the fastest and his second was interfered with, by a race official stepping on the course. Forced to repeat his second run, 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 Toni Sailer's 1956 sweep. Schranz had better success at the world championships (then held every four years, like the Olympics): gold in the downhill and combined in 1962 and gold in the giant slalom in 1970.

Had the World Cup begun a decade earlier, Schranz's outstanding achievements during his prime would be far better known. He would for instance rank behind only Klammer as the second best downhiller ever and would have been the overall world cup champion three (1966,69,70) or more times.

Schranz later became a hotel owner in his hometown of St. Anton and played a key role in organizing the 2001 World Championships.