Karl Koller (ski racer)

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Karl Koller (born April 16, 1919 in Kitzbühel ; † October 26, 2019 ) was an Austrian ski racer and ski instructor . In 1946 he won the combination of the Hahnenkamm races and was head of the Kitzbühel Ski School from 1950 to 1975.

biography

Koller was initially active in both Nordic and Alpine skiing, and during the summer months also as a football player , but soon concentrated entirely on Alpine ski racing. He belonged to the Kitzbühel Ski Club , was Austrian youth champion in the downhill in his hometown of Kitzbühel in 1938 and in the same year took second place in combination at the Tyrolean championships . First starts in international races followed. From this time on, Koller also worked as a ski instructor . His early students included the siblings Anneliese Schuh-Proxauf and Rosemarie Gebler-Proxauf . Koller was an apprentice in the Innsbruck textile shop Proxauf, owner Robert Proxauf released him to go skiing with his daughters. Albert Speer also received skiing lessons from him.

After the annexation of Austria , Koller was a member of the Greater German Reich's national ski team from 1940 to 1942 . In the winter of 1941 he reached second places in a slalom in Oberaudorf and in a combination in Bayrischzell . After that, the Second World War temporarily ended his career. From 1943 to 1945 Koller was an army mountain guide and trainer for the mountain troops of the German armed forces at the high mountain medical school in St. Johann in Tirol .

After the end of the Second World War, Koller began to participate in ski races again. He celebrated his most significant success in 1946 at the Hahnenkamm races in Kitzbühel, when he won the Hahnenkamm combination with second places in downhill and slalom. In the same year, Anneliese Schuh-Proxauf, trained by him, won the women's race. In addition, Koller achieved second place in the downhill run from Seefeld in Tyrol in the winter of 1946 . After the start ban for Austrian runners was lifted, Koller was able to take part in competitions abroad again from next winter. However, there were no major successes and so he did not qualify for the 1948 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz . At the end of the 1940s, he retired from active ski racing.

In 1950 Koller took over the management of the ski school in Kitzbühel, which he held for 25 years. He introduced numerous innovations, such as the use of a short ski in ski lessons (as opposed to the long skis usually used at the time), special teaching methods for children or the uniform clothing of the ski instructors with red pointed hat and red sweater, which is known as the "Red Devil" for ran the Kitzbühel ski school and its ski instructors. Koller's students consistently included prominent guests, for example in March 1971 the American astronaut James Arthur Lovell and his wife.

From 1968 to 1972, Koller was chairman of the Kitzbühel Tourist Association and from 1969 President of the Austrian Professional Ski Instructor Association. He took part in international ski congresses several times. In 1976, after he had given up the management of the Kitzbühel ski school, he founded his own children's ski school "Kollerland". In addition to ski textbooks, in the 1990s he published the autobiographical and local history books "Kitzbühel at my time" (1995) and "Freud und Leid zu mein Zeit" (1998). Koller was awarded the Medal of Honor of the State of Tyrol and the Medal of Honor of the City of Kitzbühel. In 2008 he worked in the documentary Ski Heil - The two boards that mean the world alongside his former racing colleagues Eberhard Kneisl , Gustav Lantschner and Richard Rossmann . Most recently, Koller lived with his partner in Jochberg . One of his grandchildren is the snowboarder Alexander Koller . He was buried in Kitzbühel .

literature

  • Austrian Ski Association (Ed.): Austrian Ski Stars from A – Z. Ablinger & Garber, Hall in Tirol 2008, ISBN 978-3-9502285-7-1 , pp. 210-211.
  • Karl Koller 90 years. In: Stadtgemeinde Kitzbühel (ed.): City of Kitzbühel. City administration bulletin, Volume 13 / No. 3, March 2009, p. 9.
  • Kitzbühel mourns Karl Koller. The legendary ski and ski school pioneer died on October 26th at the age of 100 , in: Kitzbüheler Anzeiger, vol. 70, no. 44, October 31, 2019, p. 11

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ski pioneer Karl Koller dies at the age of 100. Report on skiingpenguin.at, October 28, 2019. Accessed October 28, 2019.
  2. ^ Anneliese Gidl, Karl Graf: Skisport in Innsbruck. From the beginning to the 21st century. Haymon, Innsbruck-Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-85218-591-0 , p. 84.
  3. ↑ Press kit for the film Ski Heil - The two boards that mean the world. P. 3.
  4. ^ Wolfgang Straub (with photographs by Gerhard Trumler ): Kitzbühel. Culture and sports city in Tyrol. Christian Brandstätter Verlag, Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-85498-425-1 , p. 40.
  5. ↑ a b c d e press kit for the film Ski Heil - The two boards that mean the world. P. 17.
  6. ↑ Hans Wirtenberger: "Now I'm a Kitzbühel!" In: Stadtgemeinde Kitzbühel (ed.): City of Kitzbühel. City administration bulletin, Volume 15 / No. 3, March 2011, pp. 9-10.
  7. ↑ Press kit for the film Ski Heil - The two boards that mean the world. P. 2.
  8. ^ Ski pioneer Karl Koller dies at the age of 100. In: skiingpenguin.at. October 28, 2019, accessed August 27, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Koller, Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian ski racer and ski instructor
DATE OF BIRTH April 16, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Kitzbuhel , Austria
DATE OF DEATH October 26, 2019