Bernhard Gruber (Nordic combined)

Bernhard Gruber
Bernhard Gruber at the 2019 World Cup in Seefeld
nation	Austria
birthday	12th August 1982 (age 38)
place of birth	Schwarzach im Pongau , Austria
size	185 cm
Weight	71 kg
Career
society	WSV Bad Hofgastein, SC Bischofshofen
status	active
Medal table
Olympic medals 1 × 0 × 3 × World Cup medals 3 × 3 × 3 × JWM medals 0 × 0 × 1 × Universiade medals 1 × 1 × 0 × National medals 3 × 4 × 6 ×
winter Olympics gold 2010 Vancouver team bronze 2010 Vancouver Gundersen (GS) bronze 2014 Sochi team bronze 2018 Pyeongchang team  Nordic World Ski Championships gold 2011 Oslo Team (NS) gold 2011 Oslo Team (GS) silver 2013 Val di Fiemme Gundersen (GS) silver 2013 Val di Fiemme Team sprint gold 2015 Falun Gundersen (GS) bronze 2017 Lahti team bronze 2019 Seefeld Team sprint silver 2019 Seefeld Gundersen (NS) bronze 2019 Seefeld team  Nordic Junior Ski World Championships bronze 2000 Štrbské Pleso team  Winter Universiade gold 2005 Innsbruck sprint silver 2005 Innsbruck Gundersen  Austrian championships bronze 1999 Stams sprint bronze 2008 Oberstdorf Mass start bronze 2010 Innsbruck Gundersen (GS) bronze 2012 Ramsau Gundersen (GS) bronze 2013 Villach Gundersen (NS) silver 2013 Bischofshofen Gundersen (GS) gold 2015 Tschagguns Normal hill gold 2015 Tschagguns Gundersen (GS) silver 2016 Villach Gundersen (GS) bronze 2016 Villach Gundersen (NS) silver 2017 Villach Gundersen (NS) silver 2018 Hinzenbach Gundersen (NS) gold 2019 Tschagguns Gundersen (NS)
Placements in the World Cup
Debut in the World Cup	0January 1, 2003
World Cup victories (individual)	07 ( details )
World Cup victories (team)	02 ( details )
Overall World Cup	04. ( 2007/08 , 2011/12 , 2012/13 )
Sprint World Cup	03rd ( 2007/08 )
Podium placements 1. 2. 3.  singles 6th 6th 9  sprint 1 1 2  Mass start 0 2 0  team 0 2 4th  Team sprint 2 0 1
Placements in the Grand Prix
Debut in the Grand Prix	August 22, 2003
Grand Prix victories (individual)	03 ( details )
Grand Prix victories (team)	02 ( details )
Overall rating	01. ( 2012 , 2013 )
Podium placements 1. 2. 3.  singles 3 5 5  team 2 2 1
Placements in the Continental Cup (COC)
Debut in the COC	0February 5, 2000
COC wins (individual)	01 ( details )
Overall ranking COC	03rd ( 2004/05 )
Podium placements 1. 2. 3.  singles 1 5 2
last change: March 7, 2020

Bernhard Gruber (born August 12, 1982 in Schwarzach im Pongau ) is an Austrian Nordic combined athlete . He was Olympic champion with the team in 2010 and individual world champion on the large hill in 2015 .

Career

Bernhard Gruber comes from Bad Hofgastein in the Gastein Valley . As a member of the local winter sports club, he celebrated his first victories in the children's area in cross-country skiing. After the demolition of the youth ski jump (as the successor to the well-known Bilgeri ski jump ) in the Gastein Valley there was no longer any of the once many ski jumping hills, so Gruber started ski jumping on the Kindermattschanze in Bischofshofen in the summer of 1996 at the age of 14 . He transferred to the Ski Club Bischofshofen, whose trainers quickly recognized his talent for jumping and supported Gruber very much over the next few years. When Toni Innauer became aware of his talents in cross-country skiing and jumping, the famous former Austrian world-class ski jumper persuaded him to switch from special jumpers to combined athletes in 1998.

At the Junior World Championships in 2000 in Štrbské Pleso , Slovakia , he won the bronze medal with the Austrian relay. Two years later he started at the Junior World Championships in 2002 in Schonach in the Black Forest , where he finished seventh with the team.

Gruber has been competing in the Nordic Combined World Cup since 2003. At the Winter Universiade 2005 in Innsbruck and Seefeld in Tirol , he won the sprint and came second in the Gundersen competition. He celebrated his breakthrough in the World Cup in the 2006/07 season. At the last race in 2006, he came ninth in the top 10 for the first time. In January 2007 he achieved a top ranking for the first time with fifth place in Oberstdorf. In the 2007/08 season he established himself in the top of the world and reached three podium places until he celebrated his first World Cup victory in the sprint in Zakopane in February 2008 . The second victory followed in March 2008 in the Gundersen singles in Oslo . The third success in his career was on February 25, 2012, also in the Gundersen discipline in the Czech World Cup location Liberec . At the 2009 World Championships in Liberec, Czech Republic, he was fifth with the Austrian relay. In the two Gundersen competitions on the normal and large hill he reached eleventh place each, while he was 22nd in the mass start race.

He celebrated his greatest successes to date at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver . After the Olympic victory in the Nordic Combined team competition, he surprisingly won the bronze medal two days later in the individual competition over 10 km after he was the first to go onto the cross-country ski trail after jumping from the large hill . At the 2011 World Championships in Oslo , Norway , he was able to win the world championship title with both Austrian relays (normal and large hill). At the 2013 World Championships in Fiemme , Italy , he won two silver medals in the Gundersen competition on the large hill and in the team sprint. He was also fifth in the team competition on the normal hill and 13th in the Gundersen race on the normal hill. With the Austrian relay, he won the bronze medal at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, and came fifth in the Gundersen competition on the large hill.

At the Nordic World Ski Championships in Falun 2015, he won gold in the individual competition. Here, too, he was already in the lead after jumping. With the team he was fifth on the normal hill, seventh in the team sprint and tenth in the Gundersen race on the normal hill. He started the 2015/16 World Cup season with two fourth places in Lillehammer and one second place in Chaux-Neuve . In the further course of the season he convinced with great consistency, especially in the second half, jumped and ran regularly in the top 10 and was able to add another individual victory over 10 km Gundersen to his Palmarès in Val di Fiemme .

Gruber (No. 39) in Ramsau 2016

After the start of the 2016/17 season went well, he was able to keep improving towards the Nordic World Ski Championships in Lahti in 2017 . In the Nordic Combined Triple, he finished third behind the two German Eric Frenzel and Johannes Rydzek . At the World Championships in Lathi he finished seventh on the normal hill and ninth on the large hill in the individual competitions. In the team competition, he formed the Austrian relay together with Mario Seidl , Philipp Orter and Paul Gerstgraser , which came third behind Germany and Norway. In the team sprint, he and Wilhelm Denifl missed another medal in fourth place and 0.5 seconds behind bronze.

After the 2017/18 Olympic season did not start optimally, he still qualified for the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang . In the two individual competitions on the normal and the large hill, he could only take 20th and 21st place respectively. In the team competition he formed the Austrian relay team with Wilhelm Denifl, Lukas Klapfer and Mario Seidl . As in the 2017 World Championships, they again won the bronze medal behind the German and Norwegian relays. At the first World Cup after the Olympic Winter Games, he and his partner Wilhelm Denifl won the combined team sprint in Lahti on March 3, 2018.

The 2018/19 World Cup season was characterized by some fluctuations in performance, so that after finishing seventh in Ramsau in mid-December, he was only able to place in the top 10 in Lahti at the beginning of February. Only because of the increase in Lahti was he nominated for the home World Championships in Seefeld , which Gruber himself had almost written off. At the peak of the season, Gruber finally presented himself in top form and after reaching tenth place on the large hill, he was able to win the silver medal on the normal hill behind Jarl Magnus Riiber . In addition, he won bronze in the team sprint together with Franz-Josef Rehrl and in the team competition together with Mario Seidl, Rehrl and Lukas Klapfer, making him the most successful ÖSV combined athlete at world championships with nine World Championship medals. He was tenth in the Gundersen competition on the large hill. On the final World Cup weekend in Schonach , he was even able to trump his World Cup performance with his seventh World Cup victory.

After Gruber entered the World Cup late due to gastroenteritis , he was never able to achieve the desired form in his competitions. When he was hit by a flu infection in February 2020, Gruber decided to end the 2019/20 season prematurely for health reasons : "You can't really get it worse, as much bad luck as I had this year with illness and infections." He was ranked 42nd. In mid-March 2020, Gruber underwent a cardiac catheter examination after persistent chest pain , during which a stent was successfully inserted.

successes

World cup

World Cup victories in individual

No.	date	place	discipline
1.	February 24, 2008	Zakopane	sprint
2.	March 8, 2008	Oslo	Gundersen
3.	February 25, 2012	Liberec	Gundersen
4th	February 2, 2013	Sochi	Gundersen
5.	January 30, 2015	Val di Fiemme	Gundersen
6th	February 27, 2016	Val di Fiemme	Gundersen
7th	16th March 2019	Schonach	Gundersen

World Cup victories in the team

No.	date	place	discipline
1.	December 2, 2012	Kuusamo	Team sprint 1
2.	March 3, 2018	Lahti	Team sprint 2

¹With Mario Stecher .

²With Wilhelm Denifl .

Grand Prix

Individual Grand Prix victories

No.	date	place	discipline
1.	July 21, 2012	Sochi	Gundersen
2.	August 26, 2012	Oberwiesenthal	Gundersen
3.	August 30, 2013	Oberstdorf	Gundersen

Grand Prix victories in the team

No.	date	place	discipline
1.	August 24, 2013	Oberwiesenthal	Gundersen 1
2.	29th August 2015	Oberwiesenthal	Team sprint 2

¹With Christoph Bieler .

²With Harald Lemmerer .

B world cup

B-World Cup victories in individual

No.	date	place	discipline
1.	December 20, 2002	Park City	Gundersen

statistics

Placements at the Olympic Winter Games

Year and place	competition
	Gundersen NS	Gundersen GS	team
Vancouver 2010	-	03.	01.
Sochi 2014	-	05.	03.
Pyeongchang 2018	20th	21st	03.

Placements at world championships

Year and place	competition
	Gundersen NS	Gundersen GS	Mass start	Team NS	Team GS	Team sprint
2009 Liberec	11.	11.	22nd	-	05.	-
2011 Oslo	-	-	-	01.	01.	-
2013 Val di Fiemme	13.	02.	-	05.	-	02.
2015 Falun	10.	01.	-	05.	-	07th
2017 Lahti	07th	09.	-	03.	-	04th
2019 Seefeld	02.	10.	-	03.	-	03.

World Cup placements

season	space	Points
2005/06	22nd	231
2006/07	17th	204
2007/08	04th	894
2008/09	09.	524
2009/10	16.	311
2010/11	16.	231
2011/12	04th	765
2012/13	04th	619
2013/14	16.	292
2014/15	05.	684
2015/16	07th	618
2016/17	10.	436
2017/18	26th	213
2018/19	16.	356
2019/20	42.	021st

Grand Prix placements

season	space	Points
2001	24.	069
2004	06th	148
2005	22nd	017th
2006	04th	196
2007	06th	170
2009	31.	022nd
2011	08th.	151
2012	01.	565
2013	01.	290
2014	13.	064
2015	07th	120
2016	15th	085
2018	26th	053
2019	21st	078

Web links

Commons : Bernhard Gruber  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Bernhard Gruber in the database of the International Ski Association (English)
• Bernhard Gruber in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )
• Personal website
• Portrait on the ÖSV website

Individual evidence

1. ↑ 100 years of the Bad Hofgastein winter sports club. 1908-2008. Cross-country and combiners section. Page 121
2. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original dated February 26, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ Olympia: Third gold in Nordic combined - team relay wins. Focus , February 22, 2018, accessed March 6, 2018 . 
4. ↑ Gruber / Denifl won combined team sprint in Lahti (March 3, 2018)
5. ↑ Michael Unverdorben: Bernhard Gruber had already given up the home World Cup. Salzburger Nachrichten , February 20, 2019, accessed on April 10, 2019 . 
6. ↑ Bernhard Gruber combined himself to World Cup silver. Salzburger Nachrichten , February 28, 2019, accessed on April 10, 2019 . 
7. ↑ Bernhard Gruber ends season prematurely. oesv.at (Austrian Ski Association), February 17, 2020, accessed on February 17, 2020 . 
8. ↑ Heart operation with Bernhard Gruber. oesv.at (Austrian Ski Association), March 18, 2020, accessed on March 18, 2020 .