Christian Pravda

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Christian Pravda Alpine skiing
nation AustriaAustria Austria
birthday March 8, 1927
place of birth Kufstein , Austria
date of death November 11, 1994
Place of death Kitzbühel
Career
discipline Slalom , giant slalom ,
downhill , combination
society Kitzbühel Ski Club
End of career 1960
Medal table
Olympic games 0 × gold 1 × silver 1 × bronze
World championships 1 × gold 2 × silver 1 × bronze
Olympic rings winter Olympics
silver Oslo 1952 Giant slalom
bronze Oslo 1952 Departure
FIS Alpine World Ski Championships
silver Oslo 1952 Giant slalom
bronze Oslo 1952 Departure
gold Are 1954 Departure
silver Are 1954 combination
 

Christian Pravda (born March 8, 1927 in Kufstein ; † November 11, 1994 in Kitzbühel ) was an Austrian ski racer . Pravda was a member of the so-called miracle team that Fred Rößner had formed from the Austrian national ski team in the early 1950s. He was considered an excellent all-rounder. In 1954 he became world champion in the downhill.

Career

Pravda started skiing at an early age and became a member of the Kitzbühel Ski Club in 1937. After the end of the Second World War , he quickly made it to the top of Austria. He celebrated his first successes in Kitzbühel in 1947 when he won the Hahnenkamm combination with a victory in the slalom and third place in the downhill . These achievements enabled him to take part in the 1948 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz . There he only started in the slalom, but could not finish it. In 1948 he won the giant slalom on the Zugspitze , but in the following winter he remained without a win and achieved third place in the combination of Sterzing as the best result .

At the 1950 World Cup in Aspen , his best result was fifth in the downhill. In the subsequent North American races, the Tyrolean celebrated several victories again and won both slaloms and combinations in Stowe . In 1951 Pravda won the Hahnenkamm combination for the second time with victories in slalom and downhill and was the first to achieve a travel time of less than three minutes on the Streif . He also won the additional downhill run, making him the only one to date to have celebrated four Hahnenkamm victories in one season. The Tyrolean achieved another win of the season in the Garmisch-Partenkirchen slalom , and came second in the Arlberg-Kandahar descent in Sestriere . In 1951 he was also a three-time Austrian champion in slalom, giant slalom and combined.

In 1952, Pravda won its first medals at major events. At the Olympic Winter Games in Oslo , he won the silver medal in the giant slalom and the bronze in the downhill. Only in the slalom did he have to be content with 29th place after serious mistakes. He celebrated victories of the season in the downhill from Bad Gastein ; in the Arlberg-Kandahar combination in Chamonix he came second. At the Austrian Championships in 1952 , he won two more titles in slalom and giant slalom. In the winter of 1953 he achieved his greatest successes in the North American races: in Stowe he won slalom and giant slalom, in Sun Valley he won the downhill and combination of the Harriman Cup and in the Sugar Bowl he won the giant slalom of the Silver Belt .

Successful 1953/54 season with world championship title

In the winter of 1953/54 Pravda won both the Lauberhorn in Wengen (January 9th / 10th) and the Hahnenkamm races in Kitzbühel in the downhill and the combined (he also came third in the giant slalom on January 22nd).
He also won the Austrian championships in downhill and combined. His numerous other successes of the season included the slalom of the Arlberg-Kandahar race in Garmisch as well as the victories in the slalom of the Montafon race in Schruns on January 17th and in the two giant slaloms and the combination of the 3-tre races on the Marmolada .
The high point of his career was the 1954 World Cup in Åre, Sweden . He missed the podium by 0.16 seconds with fourth place in the slalom. However, this placement (and with it any chance in the combined ranking) was in jeopardy, because after the first run in 3rd place (with 75.50 seconds, 1.81 seconds behind the leading stone Eriksen ), he came in the second run He fell and had been given five penalty seconds for an alleged goal error, which meant he was only 13th in the final ranking with 151.89 seconds. The leader of the ÖSV delegation , Prof. Fred Rößner , protested against this - and because a film was available about this scene, the “5-second penalty” was withdrawn on the basis of these recordings (this correction probably took place on March 6th). In the giant slalom he only came in 14th after a fall, but with the improved time in the slalom he moved up to sixth place in the combined intermediate ranking. On the final day, March 7th, he led a triple Austrian downhill success (with over two seconds ahead of his compatriot Martin Strolz ) and thus also achieved the silver medal in the combination. It was the first time since 1931 that in a men's decision at world championships all medals went to the same nation (at that time Switzerland even won four times). Pravda became the second Austrian downhill world champion after Franz Zingerle in 1935 (with the restriction that the downhill world champion in 1939 Hellmut Lantschner started as an Austrian for the DSV and the German Reich because of his political change of nations and associations ).

Blocked in 1955/56

However, the next winter his career suffered a severe setback. After he had modeled for advertising shoots for a French ski company, and thus violated the amateur rules, he was banned for a year and also missed the 1956 Olympic Games. After that, he celebrated successes especially in the races in North America. In 1956, Pravda won in Sun Valley , where he now lived and worked as a ski instructor, downhill, slalom and combination of the Harriman Cup and the giant slalom of the Silver Belt. A year later he was able to repeat the victories in the Silver Belt as well as in slalom and combination of the Harriman Cup and also won the slalom in Squaw Valley and downhill and combination on February 24th at the »Roch Trophy« in Aspen (also 2nd place in Giant slalom on February 22nd)
In 1958 he also won several victories and was Austrian slalom champion for the third time (on March 2nd in Innsbruck ), but he was unable to participate in the world championship. The last victories in amateur races he celebrated in 1959 in the giant slalom of Squaw Valley and with another triple success in slalom, downhill and combined at the Harriman Cup in his adopted home Sun Valley. Then he took part in the American professional races and celebrated some successes there too. In 1963 he became the unofficial professional world champion.

Pravda continued his ski instructor activities in the United States, teaching numerous celebrities from the United States and around the world. At the beginning of the 1970s he returned to Austria and worked for a ski company for several years. In 1994 Pravda died in Kitzbühel at the age of 67 as a result of a heart attack . He was buried in the Kitzbühel city cemetery.

successes

winter Olympics

  • Oslo 1952 : 2nd giant slalom, 3rd downhill, 29th slalom

World championships

  • Aspen 1950 : 5th downhill, 12th giant slalom, 40th slalom
  • Oslo 1952 Olympic games : 2nd giant slalom, 3rd downhill, 29th slalom
  • Åre 1954 : 1st descent, 2nd combination, 4th slalom, 14th giant slalom

Austrian championships

Christian Pravda was eight times Austrian champion :

  • Slalom: 1951 , 1952 , 1958
  • Giant slalom: 1951, 1952
  • Departure: 1954
  • Combination: 1951, 1954

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ hahnenkamm.com: Profile of Christian Pravda ( Memento of the original from September 30, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.hahnenkamm.com
  2. ↑ Entry in aeiou
  3. ^ "Christian Pravda wins in Wengen" . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna January 10, 1954, p. 16 ( Arbeiter-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  4. ^ "Austria won all competitions" . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna January 12, 1954, p. 8 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  5. ↑ "Toni Spiss wins the giant slalom" . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna January 23, 1954, p. 8 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  6. ^ "A triumph of the Austrians" . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna January 24, 1954, p. 16 ( Arbeiter-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  7. ^ "The Lost Years" . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna January 26, 1954, p. 8 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  8. ↑ «Another great ski victory» . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna January 19, 1954, p. 8 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  9. ↑ «Austria still without world championship title» . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna March 2, 1954, p. 8 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  10. ↑ "Stein Eriksen two-time world champion" . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna March 4, 1954, p. 8 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  11. ^ "The first title for Austria" with the subtitle "Pravda's protest was allowed" . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna March 7, 1954, p. 16 ( Arbeiter-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  12. ↑ Toni Sailer distances Christian Pravda . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna February 24, 1957, p. 24 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  13. ↑ Sailer fell ill, Pravda won . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna February 26, 1957, p. 10 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  14. ↑ The ex-world champion's comeback . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna March 4, 1958, p. 10 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  15. ↑ The cemetery - a piece of Kitzbichler history
  16. ^ Knerger.de: The grave of Christian Pravda
personal data
SURNAME Pravda, Christian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian ski racer
DATE OF BIRTH March 8, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Kitzbühel
DATE OF DEATH November 11, 1994
Place of death Kitzbühel