Franz Stampfl

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Franz Ferdinand Leopold Stampfl (born November 18, 1913 in Vienna , Austria-Hungary , † March 19, 1995 in Melbourne ) was one of the leading athletics coaches of the 20th century and one of the first representatives of interval training. His most formative success was the first mile under 4 minutes by Roger Bannister on May 6, 1954.

Viennese years

Franz Stampfl grew up in modest circumstances in Vienna- Ottakring . The family with seven children lived in an apartment consisting only of a room-kitchen-cabinet. Father Josef Stampfl was a manufacturer of surgical instruments. About his mother Karoline Katharina Stampfl, geb. Josepov, it is believed that she was of Russian descent and had an unclear connection to the tsarist family and Felix Felixowitsch Yusupov , the mastermind behind the murder of Rasputin . Franz Stampfl completed a commercial apprenticeship and attended painting courses at the Vienna School of Applied Arts . He was active as an athlete and was a good skier. In 1935 he won the title of Austrian junior champion in javelin throw . At the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin , he was a member of the Austrian team as a trainer and in support of head coach Harold Anson Bruce. Presumably for disciplinary reasons he was excluded from the team in Berlin like several other athletes and a few weeks later banned from the sports management for over two years until the end of 1938.

Departure from Austria

At the beginning of May 1937, Franz Stampfl left Vienna for London . Several reasons led to this decision. There were family conflicts because he didn't want to work in his father's workshop but was interested in art and sport. In addition, he was worried about political developments and there were few economic prospects. He was not a Jew , but a Roman Catholic , and was therefore not forced to flee for “racial” reasons. However , he was hostile to National Socialism , as was his sister Hilda Stampfl, who was involved in the communist resistance, was arrested in Vienna in 1941 and imprisoned in the Aichach women's penal institution in Bavaria from 1943 until the end of World War II . The Ronay Jewish family, with whom he had close contact and who had emigrated to London before him, also provided an impetus to leave Vienna.

Second World War

With the annexation of Austria to Hitler's Germany and the attack by German troops on Poland , Franz Stampfl became an enemy alien in London and had to prove that he could do a job that no other Englishman would be able to do. With the support of Harold Abrahams , Olympic champion in 1924 over 100 m, he got various jobs as a trainer. In the spring of 1940, however, Great Britain wanted to deport people from Germany, Austria and Italy for fear that they might be spies and would fight the English in the event of a German attack. Franz Stampfl was interrogated, went on a hunger strike , was sent to Walton Prison near Liverpool and the Seaton internment camp in southern England. On July 2, 1940, he is likely on the way as an intern aboard the ship SS Arandora Star Canada have been that after a torpedo attack has fallen . Around half of the 1,600 men in the crew died. From July 10th to September 6th 1940 he was deported to Australia on the troop transport ship HMT Dunera under devastating circumstances . Until January 28, 1942 he was in the internment camps Hay and Tatura . He then served in the Australian Army until January 15, 1946 and returned to Great Britain on February 28, 1946.

First mile under 4 minutes

From 1946 to 1951, Franz Stampfl worked as the national athletics coach for Northern Ireland in Belfast . When he could no longer be paid there, he went to London and began working as a freelance coach. From autumn 1953 he worked with Roger Bannister, Chris Brasher and Chris Chataway on the goal of breaking the 4-minute barrier in the mile run for the first time. Stampfl devised the plan for the race, first Brasher and then Chataway to set the right pace before Bannister would complete the task. Due to the heavy wind on race day, May 6, 1954, Bannister was unsure whether to start. On the train ride from London to Oxford , where the race was planned, Stampfl said to Bannister: "If you don't try today, will you ever be able to forgive yourself?" On the Iffley Road Track in Oxford, Bannister achieved a time of 3: 59.4 minutes.

Book "Franz Stampfl On Running"

In 1955 he published his book "Franz Stampfl On Running", which the Times in London called "admirable and enthralling text-book on training and tactics". In it he formulated his training methods from sprinting to long-distance running over 10,000 m and coined several striking quotes:

  • "Running is an art, and every runner must be thought of as an artist."
  • "Every competitor wants to win, but not all have the 'will to win'."
  • "The possibilities in racing tactics are almost unlimited, as in a game of chess, for every move there is a counter, for every attack there is a defense."
  • "The coach's job is twenty per cent technical and eighty per cent inspirational."
  • "Fear is the strongest driving force in competition. Not fear of one's opponent, but of the skill and high standard which he represents; fear, too, of not acquitting oneself well. "

Trainer in Australia

Even before the mile race on May 6, 1954, efforts were made to bring Franz Stampfl to Australia as a trainer. The six-time Olympic medalist and Mayor of Melbourne Frank Beaurepaire was instrumental in ensuring that Stampfl received a coaching position in the run-up to the Melbourne Olympic Games in 1956 . He arrived in Melbourne on August 11, 1955 and began working afterwards. He was sworn in as an Australian citizen on November 12, 1956. From 1958 he headed the athletics department at Melbourne University as a trainer and from around 1964 led a daily jogging group for health athletes. He also worked as a fitness trainer for soccer players, ski racers, boxers and tennis players. After his retirement in 1978, he continued to work at the university on a fee basis.

Achievements of his athletes

In addition to the first "Sub-4" mile, Franz Stampfl's athletes achieved numerous other successes over a long period of time at the highest level. Roger Bannister won the mile race at the Empire Games in Vancouver in 1954 in 3: 58.8 minutes ahead of John Landy and won the 1500 meters at the European Championships in Bern. Chris Chataway set a world record over 5000 m in 1954. Chris Brasher won Olympic gold over 3000 m obstacle in 1956. The Northern Irish high jumper Thelma Hopkins set the world record in high jump in 1956 and won Olympic silver in the same year. The Australian Hector Hogan was Olympic third in the 100 m in 1956. In 1968 Ralph Doubell won the Olympic Games in Mexico City over 800 m and set Peter Snell's world record with a time of 1: 44.3 min . The 17-time world record runner Ron Clarke was supervised as a young runner by Franz Stampfl and achieved junior world records over one and two miles. In June and July 1967, Stampfl coached Ron Clarke on a running tour in Europe. Clarke set a world record over two miles. The long jumper Jean Desforges , the middle distance runners Merv Lincoln and Peter Bourke , the shot putter Gael Martin and the javelin thrower Sue Howland were trained by Stampfl.

Traffic accident and quadriplegia

On November 16, 1980, Stampfl was seriously injured in a traffic accident in Melbourne. Ever since he was a quadriplegic from the neck down paralyzed. He couldn't move his feet any more and could only raise his arms a little. “As long as I have my eyes and my voice, I can coach,” he said afterwards. For 14 years he continued to go to university every day to train athletes. In 1990 Piero Sacchetta won the Australian javelin championship under his guidance. He was active as a trainer until a few days before his death on March 19, 1995.

Private matters and relations with Austria

In 1947, Franz Stampfl married the Australian Patricia Mary, née Cussen, in Belfast, a granddaughter of the top lawyer Sir Leo Cussen. Their son Anton Stampfl was born in 1959. Between 1960 and 1980, Franz Stampfl traveled to Vienna several times to visit his family, where he had good contact in particular with his sister Hilda and his brother Josef Stampfl, who was athletics trainer and president of the Vienna Athletics Association. Franz Stampfl's life and successes were almost completely unknown in his country of origin until the 100th anniversary of his birth in November 2013.

In 2012, the Future Fund of the Republic of Austria Andreas Maier approved a project with the aim of publishing a biography of Franz Stampfl as a book.

Awards

  • First non-American to be inducted into the Helms Athletic Foundation Hall of Fame, USA, 1957
  • United States Olympic Association "Franz Stampfl in Appreciation 1958"
  • Honorary Citizen of Winnipeg , September 2, 1958
  • MBE - "for his service to the sports of athletics", June 13, 1981
  • Admission as Associate Member to the “Sport Australia Hall of Fame”, December 5, 1989

literature

  • Andreas Maier: Franz Stampfl - trainer genius and global citizen. Biography of a visionary. SportImPuls, Salzburg-Vienna 2013. ISBN 9783200033665
  • Franz Stampfl On Running. Tactics and complete training schedules for all events from the sprint to the 10,000 meters. Herbert Jenkins, 1955.
  • John Bryant: 3: 59.4: The Quest to Break the Four Minute Mile. Arrow, London 2005. ISBN 978-0-09-946908-7
  • Neal Bascomb: The Perfect Mile: three athletes, one goal and less than four minutes to achieve it. Mariner Books, New York 2005. ISBN 978-0-618-56209-1

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "Sport-Tagblatt" , September 25, 1936, page 1. Accessed on November 16, 2013
  2. ↑ Radio program "Your Story, Our Story", broadcast on July 12, 1981. "In Person", No. 6. National Archives of Australia, C / 00, 88/7 / 1730M
  3. ^ "Austrian Biographical Lexicon - Biography of the Month, November 2013" Elisabeth Lebensaft, Christoph Mentschl: The Man behind the Four-Minute-Mile. Retrieved October 4, 2016
  4. ^ National Archives Australia, NAA: B884, V377434
  5. ^ Roger Bannister, First Four Minutes, The Sportsmans Book Club, London 1956, 188
  6. ^ Neal Bascomb, The Perfect Mile. Mariner Books, New York 2005. John Bryant, 3: 59.4: The Quest to Break the Four Minute Mile. Hutchinson 2004.
  7. ^ Franz Stampfl On Running. Tactics and complete training schedules for all events from the sprint to the 10,000 meters. Herbert Jenkins, 1955.
  8. ^ The Times, September 8, 1955
  9. ↑ Arnd Krüger : Many roads lead to Olympia. The changes in training systems for medium and long distance runners (1850–1997). In: Norbert Gissel (Hrsg.): Sporting performance in change. Czwalina, Hamburg 1998, ISBN 978-3-88020-322-8 , pp. 41-56.
  10. ↑ The Age newspaper, November 24, 1980
  11. ↑ “The Standard” edition of November 15, 2013, “The Milestone Mason”. Retrieved November 16, 2013
  12. ^ "Wiener Zeitung" edition of November 16, 2013, "Austria's forgotten world-class coach". Retrieved November 16, 2013
  13. ↑ ZukunftsFonds: Project details No. P13-1522 ; Retrieved Nov. 16, 2013
personal data
SURNAME Stampfl, Franz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Stampfl, Franz Ferdinand Leopold
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian-Australian athletics trainer
DATE OF BIRTH November 18, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH March 19, 1995
Place of death Melbourne