Toni Sailer

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Toni Sailer Alpine skiing
Toni Sailer, 1998
Toni Sailer, 1998
Full name Anton Engelbert Sailer
nation AustriaAustria Austria
birthday November 17, 1935
place of birth Kitzbuhel , Austria
job Glaser and Spengler
date of death August 24, 2009
Place of death innsbruck
Career
discipline Downhill , giant slalom ,
slalom , combination
society Kitzbühel Ski Club
End of career 1958
Medal table
Olympic games 3 × gold 0 × silver 0 × bronze
World championships 7 × gold 1 × silver 0 × bronze
Olympic rings winter Olympics
gold Cortina d'Ampezzo 1956 Departure
gold Cortina d'Ampezzo 1956 slalom
gold Cortina d'Ampezzo 1956 Giant slalom
FIS Alpine World Ski Championships
gold Cortina d'Ampezzo 1956 Departure
gold Cortina d'Ampezzo 1956 slalom
gold Cortina d'Ampezzo 1956 Giant slalom
gold Cortina d'Ampezzo 1956 combination
gold Bad Gastein 1958 Departure
gold Bad Gastein 1958 Giant slalom
gold Bad Gastein 1958 combination
silver Bad Gastein 1958 slalom
 

Anton Engelbert "Toni" Sailer (born November 17, 1935 in Kitzbühel , Tyrol , † August 24, 2009 in Innsbruck ) was an Austrian ski racer , actor and singer . At the 1956 Winter Olympics in Cortina d'Ampezzo , he won three gold medals in slalom , giant slalom and downhill , which also counted as world championship medals, and the gold medal in the non-Olympic alpine combination . At the 1958 World Championships in Bad Gastein , Sailer won gold in downhill, giant slalom and combined as well as silver in slalom. With his three Olympic gold medals and seven world championship titles, he is one of the most successful ski racers.

Ski career

Toni Sailer got his first skis shortly before his second birthday and started skiing very early. His father Anton Sailer, who came to Kitzbühel as a master plumber in 1914 , was an avid skier, his older sister Rosi and younger brother Rudi also became ski racers. As a ten-year-old Sailer took part in his first races, and quickly celebrated successes in the school classes. From 1947 he was a member of the Kitzbühel Ski Club, of which he was president from 1967 to 1976. In his youth he was also active as a ski jumper , but soon concentrated exclusively on alpine competitions. Sailer attended the business school in Schwaz and learned the trade of glazier and plumber.

In the winter of 1952, Sailer celebrated his first major victories at the age of 16. He won the downhill and the combination of Megève and the giant slalom and the combination of Morzine . In a serious training fall in Zürs , he suffered a fractured tibia and fibula and had to pause the entire 1952/53 season. In the winter of 1954 he did not qualify for the world championship in Åre , but he won the slalom and the combination of Cortina d'Ampezzo and the giant slalom of Seefeld .

In the 1954/55 season he celebrated his first of five victories in the Lauberhorn race in Wengen . In the descent he had a lead of almost four seconds over second-placed Anderl Molterer , and with seventh place in the slalom he also won the combination. He achieved further season successes in the giant slalom in Morzine, in the 3-tre races in Canazei , in the Glockner race and in the downhill runs from Megève and on the Tofana in Cortina.

Toni Sailer (1956)

In January 1956, the “Black Lightning from Kitz” won the Lauberhorn run again and won the Hahnenkamm races in Kitzbühel in downhill, slalom and combined. At the Olympic Winter Games in Cortina d'Ampezzo in 1956 , the then 20-year-old Tyrolean skiing history was written and he was the first athlete to win all alpine competitions at the Olympic Games. In the giant slalom he won 6.2 seconds ahead of Molterer, the slalom he won 4 seconds ahead of the Japanese Igaya , and in the downhill he crossed the finish line 3.5 seconds ahead of the Swiss Fellay . This made him three-time Olympic champion and four-time world champion, because these competitions, plus the non-Olympic combination, also counted as a world championship. The Frenchman Jean-Claude Killy did not manage to do this until twelve years later , albeit with a much smaller lead. Thanks to his success at the Games, Sailer became a national hero, received the Grand Decoration of Honor for Services to the Republic of Austria from Federal President Theodor Körner at the Olympic reception in the Vienna Hofburg , was named Austria's Sportsman of the Year and received numerous film offers.

In the winter of 1956/1957 Sailer won the downhill runs in Wengen and Kitzbühel and was Austrian champion in slalom, giant slalom and combined. He celebrated further victories, especially in the North American races. In Aspen he won two giant slaloms, one slalom and one downhill; in Stowe he won the giant slalom, the downhill and the combined; at the Harriman Cup in Sun Valley he won slalom, downhill and combined, and in Squaw Valley he was victorious in downhill and combined.

The first film he worked on during his first year was Slice of Heaven. Since this film had nothing to do with skiing, Sailer's appearance did not violate the amateur rules. In the second film, The Black Flash , however, he came into conflict with the strict amateur rules of the FIS . But this let him continue to start. However, the International Olympic Committee did not want to commit to a possible participation in the 1960 Games.

In January 1958, Sailer won the Lauberhorn downhill run and the giant slalom in Kitzbühel and Saalfelden for the fourth time . At the 1958 World Cup in Bad Gastein , he was again the big star and won three gold medals. Only in the first competition, the slalom, was he beaten by the Austrian Josef Rieder and took second place. In the giant slalom, he relegated Rieder to second place. In the downhill, Sailer won ahead of the Swiss Roger Staub and thus also won the combination. After the World Cup, he ended the season prematurely, but at the end of the year he was named Austrian Sportsman of the Year 1958 for the third time .

There were reports of his resignation as early as the summer of 1958, and Sailer made him public on June 8, 1959 in an interview with Bayerischer Rundfunk, in which he declared that he would not take part in the upcoming Olympic Games, now that he is 100% committed dedicate himself to new tasks, cannot dance at two weddings and he also lacks training; he will only go skiing for leisure and recreation.

Sporting successes

winter Olympics

World championships

Austrian championships

  • Austrian youth champion in the triple combination (1st descent, 1st slalom, 5th ski jumping) 1952
  • Austrian champion in slalom, giant slalom and combined 1957

Further career

Sailer attended a drama school in Berlin and worked in numerous film and television productions such as King of the Silver Mountains and The Black Lightning . He also worked as a pop singer and made 18 recordings.

He was also active in motorsport : from 1967 to 1969 he competed in various makes of Formula Vee vehicles.

From 1972 to 1976 Sailer worked as head trainer and technical director of the Austrian Ski Association . During this time, the Austrian runners took the Nations Cup back from the French who dominated at the beginning of the 1970s and defended it seven times until 1980.

On August 2, 1976, Sailer married the Rhinelander Gaby Rummeny in Vancouver , who died in November 2000. The two had a son, Florian. In 2006 he married Hedwig Fischer in his second marriage.

The enthusiastic golfer was President of the Kitzbühel Golf Club from 1978 to 1993. In 1985 he received the Olympic Order of the International Olympic Committee on the occasion of his 50th birthday .

From 1986 to 2006, Sailer was race director at the Hahnenkamm races in Kitzbühel, but also technical director of the FIS at various international alpine ski races and also an honorary member of various sports organizations. For more than 30 years he directed the children's ski school of the "Red Devils" in Kitzbühel. In January 2004 he announced that he wanted to run for the office of mayor of Kitzbühel. A few weeks later, he withdrew his plan.

In 1999 Sailer was named Austria's Sportsman of the Century , and in April 2009 he received the Snow Crystal of Winter Sports . After his death, Toni Sailer also acts as a licensor for the ski fashion line “ToniSailerSports” through his bereaved relatives. The license holder is Fashionpool, based in Grasbrunn .

As part of his social commitment, he took part in the torch relay for the Special Olympics Winter Games in Innsbruck in Kitzbühel in 2008 and passed on the so-called “Flame of Hope”. On the occasion he said: “These are mentally handicapped children. I have been very committed to these young people for years. ”It was one of his last major public appearances.

Toni Sailer died on August 24, 2009 of a brain tumor . Since the beginning of 2008 it was known that he suffered from throat cancer and that he had therefore been undergoing chemotherapy in a private clinic for a long time. Toni Sailer was buried in the Kitzbühel city cemetery. On his tombstone, next to the dates of his life, it reads “Famous, popular, humble”.

Rape allegations

On March 5, 1974 Toni Sailer was on charges of rape by police in Poland Zakopane arrested, where he was on the occasion of the World Cup - Slalom race was staying. He had raped and injured the Polish prostitute Janina S. under the influence of alcohol and with the participation of two other perpetrators. After interventions by the Austrian Foreign Ministry and the Austrian Embassy, ​​he was released and was able to leave Poland the next day on bail of US $ 5,000  . The Polish authorities subsequently decided not to treat the incident as rape but as assault. This enabled the proceedings to be discontinued. There was also no private lawsuit on the part of the victim. Toni Sailer denied the allegation throughout his life and was convinced that the communist regime had set a trap for him. One of the other two alleged accomplices also stated that Sailer had fallen victim to a trap. At that time it was customary in the states of the Eastern Bloc to use denouncing methods to force concessions.

The case was again reported in the media in January 2018 as part of the MeToo debate by a previously unknown file by the Austrian Ministry of Justice that was evaluated by a research community of Der Standard , Dossier and Ö1 . Nicola Werdenigg , a former ski racer who made public in November 2017 that she had been raped by a teammate in the seventies, founded a contact point for victims of abuse ("WeTogether") and others. advocates investigating and disclosing the cover-up processes from that time, and opening the files from the State Archives and the Foreign Office.

In October 2018, the German news magazine Der Spiegel published again allegations. A woman who wanted to remain anonymous, then 14 years old, claimed in Spiegel that Toni Sailer raped her on January 26, 1975 in a hotel in Innsbruck.

Awards

Further reception

To Sailer's 70th birthday and the 50th anniversary of the Winter Olympics in Cortina d'Ampezzo which brought Austrian Post a personalized on 9 February 2006 issue block out. The mixed sheet contains brand motifs from the athlete's career.

On Sailer's 80th birthday in 2015, a memorial with the title "Black Lightning - Toni Sailer" was erected in memory of him in Kitzbühel. In addition, the Austrian Post issued commemorative stamps.

Publications

  • My way to a triple Olympic victory . The mountain map, Salzburg / Stuttgart 1956.
  • New ski school . Cotta, Stuttgart 1966.
  • Junior Ski School . Wotton, London 1986, ISBN 0-9512768-0-8 .

Filmography

literature

Web links

Commons : Toni Sailer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "Toni Sailer, don't become a star!" In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna February 14, 1956, p. 3 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  2. ↑ Toni Sailer Sportsman of the Year . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna January 31, 1957, p. 10 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  3. ^ Entry on Toni Sailer in the Austria Forum  (biography), accessed on December 8, 2011.
  4. ↑ Toni Sailer resigns. In: Sport Zurich. No. 66, June 10, 1959; Page 5 or 8 (illegible), column 3.
  5. ↑ Toni Sailer. On: Kitzbuehel.at. Retrieved February 10, 2015.
  6. ↑ Winter sports in Formula V. At: Volkswagen-Motorsport.com. P. 15/50, accessed on January 18, 2018.
  7. ↑ Toni Sailer receives snow crystal. ( Memento of March 13, 2010 in the Internet Archive ). In: OESV.at . April 23, 2009. Retrieved July 2, 2009.
  8. ^ Special Olympics torch relay in Kitzbühel. At: Reisenews-Online.de. January 4, 2008, accessed on January 19, 2018.
  9. ↑ Skiing legend Toni Sailer is dead. On: tirol.orf.at. August 25, 2009, accessed on January 18, 2018.
  10. ↑ Toni Sailer has cancer of the throat. At: oe24.at. January 18, 2008, accessed on January 19, 2018.
  11. ↑ Toni Sailer's grave. At: knerger.de. Retrieved January 19, 2018.
  12. ↑ a b c Johannes Knuth: Ski hero Toni Sailer and the question of guilt. On: Sueddeutsche.de . January 19, 2008, accessed on January 19, 2018.
  13. ↑ a b c Act Toni Sailer: How to catch a falling star. On: derStandard.at. January 17, 2018, accessed on January 18, 2018.
  14. ↑ Wolfgang Vienna Home: Tricky Topic: The case of the idol Toni Sailer. On: Kurier.at. January 18, 2018, accessed on January 20, 2018.
  15. ↑ So, today it's your turn  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at sueddeutsche.de, accessed on March 17, 2018.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.sueddeutsche.de  
  16. ↑ Stefan Lindner: Causa Toni Sailer makes waves. On: Tirol.ORF.at. January 19, 2018, accessed January 19, 2018.
  17. ^ "Spiegel": Serious allegations against Sailer and Kahr - derStandard.at. Retrieved October 20, 2018 .
  18. ↑ A deserved defeat in Paris. The heroes are comfortable. Toni Sailer - unnoticed . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna March 27, 1956, p. 8 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  19. ↑ Toni Sailer now has his memorial in Kitzbühel. On: Kurier.at . January 21, 2015, accessed on January 19, 2018.
  20. ↑ Stamps 2015. On: AustriaForum.org. Retrieved January 19, 2018.
personal data
SURNAME Sailer, Toni
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sailer, Anton
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian ski racer and actor
DATE OF BIRTH November 17, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Kitzbuhel , Austria
DATE OF DEATH August 24, 2009
Place of death Innsbruck , Austria