Klug grew up in the immediate vicinity of Mount Bachelor in central Oregon , where he competed in amateur snowboarding at the age of seven. While he was attending Mountain View High School in Bend , he became the American junior champion in slalom and super-G in 1989, so that he subsequently took part in professional competitions as a high school sophomore . At the age of 16, he won a race in Hunter Mountain , with which he was awarded a prize of US $ 4,000. He made the step to a full professional after successfully completing school in 1991. In the same year he was diagnosed with primary sclerosing cholangitis , which is why he was henceforth placed on a waiting list for a liver transplant . Nevertheless, he continued to take part in competitions at the highest level in the following years.
On December 6, 1996, according to the FIS , Klug made his debut in the Snowboard World Cup in Sestriere and finished eighth in the giant slalom. During the rest of the season he regularly achieved good placings, including fifth places in Lenggries and in his local Mount Bachelor his best results of the season. While he only started in the giant slalom internationally in the season, he was crowned US champion in 1997 at national level Slalom. In the winter of 1997/98 he won his first World Cup in Grächen, Switzerland, and his first Continental Cup victory a few weeks later on Mount Bachelor. In February he took part in the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano , where he finished sixth in the giant slalom. He finished the season in ninth place in the giant slalom ranking and 36th in the overall World Cup.
On July 28, 2000, Klug received a new liver transplant in Denver , which his body accepted well. Just four months later, he returned to the World Cup circus and finished his first competition in eighth place after the operation. In mid-January 2000 he won his second World Cup victory in the parallel giant slalom in Berchtesgaden . Around a year later he won the World Cup again in Kronplatz, Italy . With further good results in the 2000/01 World Cup , he finished the season in 14th place in the overall World Cup ranking, which is his best overall ranking. He celebrated his greatest sporting success at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City , where he made history as the first athlete to have had an organ transplant. Klug started in the parallel giant slalom, which was held at the Park City Mountain Resort in Park City . After he started as an outsider, a fall in the semifinals prevented his participation in the Big Final . Instead, he competed in the small final against Nicolas Huet , whom he defeated and thus won the bronze medal. Klug was the first medalist to take part in the Games with a donor liver. Since then, Klug has played an important role as a figure of identification. At the 2002 US Transplant Games , he was selected to light the torch to open the games.
At the Snowboard World Championships 2003 in Kreischberg , Klug achieved his second-best result at a world championship when he finished seventh in the parallel giant slalom. In the parallel slalom, he finished 27th. Although he had a good start into the season with three Continental Cup victories in a row in November 2004, a broken collarbone in January 2005 forced him to end the season prematurely . At the 2010 Olympic Winter Games , Klug achieved another strong result with seventh place in the parallel giant slalom. It was his third and final participation in the Winter Olympics. A few weeks later he won his first parallel slalom in the Nor-Am Cup in Steamboat Springs . He completed his last World Cup race on December 16, 2010 in Telluride , where he finished 27th.
In 2004, Klug founded his Chris Klug Foundation to raise awareness of organ and tissue donation. In addition, the foundation aims to improve the quality of life for both donors and organ recipients. He is also the real estate owner of klugproperties , book author and motivational speaker.
Chris Klug with Steve Jackson: To the Edge and Back: My Story from Organ Transplant to Olympic Snowboarder. Carroll & Graf, New York 2004. ISBN 978-0786714223 .
Anne Marie Cruz: Handling Adversity is what Chris Klug is All About. ESPN The Magazine February 15, 2002.
United States
World cup
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Grächen
Berchtesgaden
Kronplatz
1998 Nagano
2010 Vancouver
2003 Kreischberg
2009 Gangwon
