Bernhard Knauß

Bernhard Knauß
nation	Austria Slovenia (from 1996)
birthday	June 25, 1965
place of birth	Schladming
size	180 cm
Weight	84 kg
Career
discipline	Slalom , giant slalom , super-G , downhill , combination
society	WSV Schladming
status	resigned
End of career	1998
Placements in the World Cup Overall World Cup 87th ( 1997/98 ) Giant Slalom World Cup 34th (1997/1998)
Placements on the US Pro-Ski Tour Overall rating 1. (1990/1991, 1991/1992, 1. 1992/1993) World championships 6 × professional world champions

Bernhard Knauß (born June 25, 1965 in Schladming ) is a former Austrian ski racer . He belonged to the squad of the Austrian Ski Association until 1988 , before he was dismissed from it due to unsuccessfulness. Knauß then went on the US professional tour, was successful there from the start, became professional world champion six times and won the overall standings three times. In 1996 he switched back to the amateurs , now starting for Slovenia . He secured a starting place for the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano through FIS, European and World Cup races .

biography

Knauß's grandfather and father were good skiers who took part in local races. The father worked as a lift employee at the Planai railways . Like his siblings, including the multiple World Cup and Olympic medalist Hans Knauß , who was successful in the World Cup , Bernhard Knauß came to skiing at an early age. He belonged to the Schladming winter sports club and was accepted into the squad of the Austrian Ski Association (ÖSV) after school and club races in 1983 . He won several FIS races and came second in the combination at the 1986 Austrian championships . He was also used in the European and Nor-Am Cup as well as in the World Cup , but remained without major successes. Knauß had to take a break for several months due to chronic joint inflammation, did not perform as required by the ÖSV and was finally dismissed from the ÖSV squad in 1988. For the time being for the last time, he started in the slalom in St. Anton am Arlberg in December 1988 in the World Cup. There he got one last chance from the then men's racing director Hans Pum to stay in the ÖSV team, but could not use it with a retirement.

In order to be able to continue his skiing career anyway, Knauß went to the United States to join the professionals of the US Pro-Ski Tour , a racing series outside the World Ski Association . He sold his car to finance the flight and his first take-offs and competed with the professionals for the first time in early January 1989. Knauß was successful there from the start, and celebrated his first victory on his first race weekend. At the end of winter 1988/1989 he finished fifth overall. In the next few years Knauß became the most successful participant in the US Pro Tour. With over 80 race victories by the end of his professional career, he won the overall ranking three times in a row in 1990/1991, 1991/1992 and 1992/1993, after finishing second behind Roland Pfeifer from Vorarlberg in 1989/1990 . With the number of his victories as well as the amount of the prize money, he set new records on the Pro-Tour. In addition, he was professional world champion six times from 1990 to 1995. Knauß enjoyed a high reputation among his colleagues not only because of his successes. As the only overall winner of the tour, he was honored with the Bubby Kenney Award for exemplary athletic behavior, an award whose winner is chosen by the racers themselves.

After he had increasingly lost the motivation to take part in the US Pro Tour and had his first child born in Austria, he moved his permanent residence back to Styria in 1996 . The then 31-year-old did not want to retire from ski racing. With the aim of the Olympic Winter Games in Nagano in 1998 , he aimed to return to the amateurs. Knauß was able to train with the Slovenian team with the support of the Slovenian men's national trainer Tomaž Cerkovnik , against whom he had once ridden on the Pro-Tour, and received Slovenian citizenship. From the winter of 1996/1997 he took part in competitions for Slovenia, but after regaining amateur status he first had to start in FIS races and in the European Cup. In February 1997 Knauß won two European Cup giant slaloms in Sella Nevea and Altaussee , and in the following season 1997/98 he started in the World Cup. His best result was a twelfth place in the giant slalom of Val-d'Isère , which was enough for an Olympic nomination. In the Olympic giant slalom, however, Bernhard Knauß dropped out in the first round, while his brother Hans just missed the bronze medal in fourth. At the end of the 1997/1998 season, Bernhard Knauß finally ended his career.

He then remained closely connected to ski racing: Knauß was initially head of racing at Völkl and in 2007 became racing director of the Italian Tecnica Group, where he is responsible for the Nordica, Blizzard and Tecnica brands .

successes

World cup

• 2 placements among the best 20

European Cup

• 4th place in the giant slalom ranking 1996/97
• 2 race wins (giant slalom in Sella Nevea and Altaussee in February 1997)

US Pro-Ski Tour

• 3 overall victories in the 1990/1991, 1991/1992 and 1992/1993 seasons
• 6 world championship titles

literature

• Bernhard Knauß. In: Österreichischer Skiverband (Ed.) : Austrian Ski Stars from A – Z. Ablinger & Garber, Hall in Tirol 2008, ISBN 978-3-9502285-7-1 , p. 197.
• The fairytale story of Bernhard Knaus. In: Elfriede Werthan, Heribert Thaller: Traces that no wind blows away. 100 years of Styrian skiing history. Self-published, Schladming 1990, pp. 170-172.
• Hank McKee: Darkhorse Of Nagano. In: Ski. Volume 62, Number 6, February 1998, ISSN  0037-6159 , pp. 84-88.

Web links

• Bernhard Knauß in the database of the International Ski Association (English)
• Bernhard Knauß in the database of Ski-DB (English)
• Bernhard Knauß in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )