Ernst Falch

Ernst Falch
nation	Austria
birthday	June 27, 1939
place of birth	St. Anton am Arlberg
size	170 cm
Weight	64 kg
Career
discipline	Slalom , giant slalom
society	Arlberg Ski Club
status	resigned
End of career	1964

Ernst Falch (born June 27, 1939 in St. Anton am Arlberg ) is a former Austrian ski racer . He mainly started in slalom and giant slalom , achieved several victories in international races at the end of the 1950s and in the first half of the 1960s and was sixth in slalom at the 1962 World Cup in Chamonix .

biography

Falch grew up as the son of a sawmill owner in St. Anton. He came to the Arlberg Ski Club at the age of six and was accepted into the roster of the Tyrolean Ski Association in the early 1950s . Towards the end of the decade, he was promoted to the Austrian national team. Falch achieved his first successes at national level in 1956 when he was Austrian junior champion in slalom and second in combination in his age group. Two years later he celebrated his first international victory when he won the giant slalom of the Coppa Franchetti in Cortina d'Ampezzo in 1958 . In 1959 Falch reached fourth place in the heavily occupied Hahnenkamm Slalom in Kitzbühel with a high starting number, but in the same winter he sustained serious injuries on the downhill from Chamonix when he hit a tree and suffered a pelvic fracture. He had to pause the entire 1959/1960 season.

In the winter of 1960/1961 Falch made a successful comeback. He won the Vitranc Cup slalom in Kranjska Gora and achieved further podiums with second place in the slalom of Morzine and third in the slalom of Cortina d'Ampezzo. In the 1961/1962 season, Falch won the slalom and giant slalom of the Toni Mark memory races in Zell am See and Saalfelden as well as the slalom of the Grand Prix of Megève , which secured him a place in the 1962 World Cup in Chamonix. There Falch achieved the third best Austrian in sixth place in the slalom, although he hit a gate incorrectly in the first round and had to take a few steps back. Falch achieved the best results of the winter of 1962/1963 in Spittal an der Drau , where he won the slalom and was fifth in the giant slalom. After further top 5 results in the next winter, he missed a starting place for the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck in the team's internal elimination against Mathias Leitner . Falch celebrated his last victory at a giant slalom in Lebanon at the end of winter 1964 , before retiring from ski racing at the age of 25.

After the end of his career, Ernst Falch and his wife opened a hotel in St. Anton am Arlberg. The couple has three children. The eldest son Martin Falch became a successful disabled athlete in alpine skiing as well as in triathlon and duathlon after a lower leg amputation in 1998 .

successes

World championships

• Chamonix 1962 : 6th slalom

FIS races

• 7 wins:
  • Giant slalom of the Coppa Franchetti in Cortina d'Ampezzo 1958
  • Vitranc Cup slalom in Kranjska Gora 1961
  • Slalom and giant slalom of the Toni Mark Memorial Races in Zell am See and Saalfelden in 1962
  • Slalom of the Grand Prix de Megève 1962
  • Slalom in Spittal an der Drau 1963
  • Giant slalom in Lebanon 1964
• 3 second and 2 third places

literature

• Austrian Ski Association (Ed.): Austrian Ski Stars from A – Z. Ablinger & Garber, Hall in Tirol 2008, ISBN 978-3-9502285-7-1 , pp. 71-72.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ernst Falch won medals at Austrian youth championships. ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 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. ÖSV winner board, accessed on July 13, 2012. 
2. ↑ Chamonix: Men's Gate Run. In: Austria-Ski-Sport. ÖSV magazine. Issue 3/1962, pp. 8–9.
3. ^ Hermann Nussbaumer: Victory on white slopes. Balance of alpine skiing. 9th expanded edition. Trauner Verlag, Linz 1977, ISBN 3-85320-176-8 , p. 247.