Christl Cranz

Christl Cranz
Christl Cranz 1936
nation	German Empire
birthday	July 1, 1914
place of birth	Brussels ,  Belgium
date of death	September 28, 2004
Place of death	Steibis
Career
discipline	Downhill , slalom , combination
End of career	1941
Medal table
Olympic games 1 × 0 × 0 × World championships 12 × 3 × 0 ×
winter Olympics gold Garmisch-Partenkirchen 1936 combination  Alpine World Ski Championships gold St. Moritz 1934 slalom gold St. Moritz 1934 combination silver St. Moritz 1934 Departure gold Murren 1935 Departure gold Murren 1935 combination silver Murren 1935 slalom gold Chamonix 1937 Departure gold Chamonix 1937 slalom gold Chamonix 1937 combination gold Engelberg 1938 slalom gold Engelberg 1938 combination silver Engelberg 1938 Departure gold Zakopane 1939 Departure gold Zakopane 1939 slalom gold Zakopane 1939 combination

Christl Franziska Antonia Cranz-Borchers (born July 1, 1914 in Brussels , Belgium , † September 28, 2004 in Steibis ) was a German ski racer .

Cranz was the dominant runner of the 1930s . Between 1934 and 1939 she was twelve times world champion. At the Olympic Winter Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 1936 , she won the Alpine Combined . This consisted of downhill and slalom , at that time only this combination was counted (there were no separate alpine competitions as they were later held).

life and career

After the outbreak of World War I, Cranz's family fled with her from Belgium to Traifelberg near Reutlingen . Cranz learned to ski at the age of six on the hills of the Swabian Alb . She won her first race at the age of nine. The family later moved to Grindelwald and in 1928 to Freiburg im Breisgau .

In addition to her training as a sports teacher and philologist , Cranz rose to become a formative figure in alpine ski racing in the 1930s. In 1934 she won the first German championship title in combination, by 1941 there were a total of 15 German championship titles. In addition, she was Austrian champion in combination in 1937 and Swiss champion in slalom and combination in 1938 . In her former home town of Grindelwald, she won seven SDS races from 1937 to 1939 . In 1937 she was also the winner in slalom and combined at the Arlberg-Kandahar races held in Mürren .

When in St. Moritz discharged World Ski Championships 1934 Cranz two-time world champion in slalom and the combination was. Only in the downhill did she have to admit defeat to the Swiss Anny Rüegg and came second. These two titles were followed by ten more by 1939. At the World Ski Championships in Mürren in 1935 , she won downhill and combined and came second in slalom. In 1937 in Chamonix and in 1939 in Zakopane , Cranz won all three women's competitions. In 1938 in Engelberg she won slalom and combination and came second in the downhill. With twelve gold and three silver medals, she is still the most successful female athlete in the history of the Alpine World Ski Championships . In the history of the sport, only Cranz has managed to win five world titles in one discipline in the combination.

At the Olympic Winter Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 1936 , she was Olympic champion in the first ever Alpine Combined. Cranz had a crash in the downhill and lost 19 seconds to the leading Norwegian Laila Schou Nilsen . With two outstanding slalom runs on the Gudiberg , she made up her deficit and in the end won ahead of her team-mate Käthe Grasegger and Laila Schou Nilsen. On July 24, 1936, she spoke at the rally of German literature before the start of the Summer Olympics in Berlin's Kroll Opera House . Christel Cranz appeared as an idol in BDM publications .

At the 1941 World Ski Championships in Cortina d'Ampezzo , which were not recognized internationally, Cranz won two other titles. The competitions were official world championships at the time and were canceled after the end of the war at the congress of the International Ski Federation FIS in Pau . It was said that at that time both functionaries and drivers were only allowed to take part in “turncoats”. Some of the medal winners of 1941 never heard of this revocation of their titles because they had died in the war. Cranz ended her racing career after the 1941 World Cup.

In 1943 Cranz married Adolf Borchers. After the end of the Second World War, she was imprisoned for eight months because of her NSDAP membership and then committed to eleven months of forced labor in agriculture. She also had to give up teaching at the University of Freiburg . In 1947 she fled to Steibis in the American Zone . There she and her husband founded a ski school, which they ran together until 1987, and ran the Christl Cranz-Borchers ski home below the Hochgrat . After that, Cranz largely withdrew from public life. In 1991 she was inducted into the Hall of Fame for International Women's Sports.

After falling down a staircase shortly before her 90th birthday, Cranz was in poor health. Shortly afterwards she died in Steibis.

Your estate is in the Black Forest Ski Museum in Hinterzarten.

Sporting successes

Olympic games

• Garmisch-Partenkirchen 1936 : Combined gold

World championships

Alpine World Ski Championships 1934 in St. Moritz

• Gold medal in slalom
• Gold medal in the combination
• Silver medal in the downhill

Alpine Ski World Championship 1935 in Mürren

• Gold medal in the downhill
• Gold medal in the combination
• Silver medal in slalom

Alpine World Ski Championships 1937 in Chamonix

• Gold medal in the downhill
• Gold medal in slalom
• Gold medal in the combination

Alpine World Ski Championships 1938 in Engelberg

• Gold medal in slalom
• Gold medal in the combination
• Silver medal in the downhill

Alpine World Ski Championships 1939 in Zakopane

• Gold medal in the downhill
• Gold medal in slalom
• Gold medal in the combination

Literature by Christl Cranz

Cranz also published several books on the subject of skiing: Skilauf für die Frau (1935), Tried and Experienced (1939), Christl tells! (1949) and We Ski - Ski Guide for Everyone (1958).

Literature about Christl Cranz

• Adolf J. Schmid : Christl Cranz - the Freiburg ski legend , “Freiburg Almanach 1999”, p. 117 ff.
• Christl Cranz-Borchers , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 51/2004 of December 18, 2004, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)
• Christl Cranz-Borchers , in: Internationales Sportarchiv 22/2005 from June 4, 2005, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)

Web links

• Christl Cranz in the database of the International Ski Federation (English)
• Christl Cranz in the database of Ski-DB (English)
• Christl Cranz in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Literature by and about Christl Cranz in the catalog of the German National Library
• Website of the ski school founded by Christl Cranz

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Sport with tradition: skiing on the Traifelberg - Traifelberg ski lift. (No longer available online.) In: kbu-server.de. Archived from the original on January 5, 2017 ; Retrieved January 5, 2017 . 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.  
2. ↑ Christl Cranz , at Sports Reference.
3. ↑ Conversation with Dr. Brigitte von Savigny, director of the ski museum. (PDF) In: Baukultur Schwarzwald. Architecture Prize 2010. Chamber of Architects Baden-Württemberg, p. 70 , accessed on November 7, 2016 .