Franz Zigon

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Franz Zigon (born March 9, 1924 in Linz ) is an Austrian swimmer and water polo player . Despite his old age, he is still active in swimming at a competitive level.

Life & Career

Childhood and first attempts as a swimmer

Franz Zigon was born on March 9, 1924 as an only child on the Römerberg in Linz into an extended family. His parents, who were already married, were still living separately from one another with their own parents. The mother together with six other sisters and a straggler brother with the grandparents in the birthplace of Zigons am Römerberg, which still exists today (as of 2018). The grandfather was a bookbinder at the Gutenberg company and the grandmother was a housewife, who also ran a small garden. When he was three or four years old, Zigon started school across the street from where he was born. Soon afterwards the small family moved into a small apartment rented by a butcher in an ancient and desolate building in Linz's Ludlgasse.

The father, a baker, tried to move his son to a better school from the disreputable neighborhood. Despite a low income as a baker's assistant in the spade bread factories , the father - the mother was a housewife - was able to place his son in an elementary school that was considered better. By playing cards for money, Zigon's father earned something on the side and supported his son by learning an instrument ( violin ). After attending elementary school from 1930 to 1934, Zigon went to secondary school ( Goetheschule on Südtiroler Straße ), which he graduated in 1938. During his elementary school he met in 1932 during a trip with his father in the Rodl the swim and was still logged in at a young age in a swimming club in Linz. At that time he was already visiting the Linz Parkbad almost every day , where he was trained and encouraged by Kurt Patuzzi , whom he himself referred to in later years as a kind of foster father . After the annexation of Austria , Zigon appeared in the national swimming class.

Successful young athlete during the Nazi era

According to Zigons, the high point of his sporting career fell in the war years, as he was also supported by the state, including the Reich Sports Office and the Reich Sports Management , and classified as a top athlete. As such, he received larger rations and stimulants . Through the Reich performance class, Zigon, who swam his first competition in 1936 in the city battle between Munich and Linz in the indoor swimming pool in Linz, traveled all over Germany and the other countries belonging to the German Reich and was only rarely at home. He attended courses with imperial sports teachers and came to water polo by swimming . In said sport, the illegal member of the naval HJ received a call-up to the German youth national team in 1938 and completed many competitions. The navy in Kiel , which included some top athletes, showed interest in the successful junior athlete during these years. A lieutenant captain made him an offer that he only had to volunteer if he was interested.

Despite his interest, Zigon did not want to volunteer for the war, but three months later he received his call-up to the infantry anyway. With this he was initially trained in Freistadt and Krumau before he was transferred to Zagreb . There he tried to keep his swimming training upright, which was difficult to do. Since there was no swimming pool in the whole of Zagreb at that time, he trained under harrowing conditions in winter with ice-cold water in the Sava River flowing through Zagreb . In Yugoslavia, he had his first major deployment in Bihać (in the far northwest of what is now Bosnia and Herzegovina ) in March and spent a year in the war. However, this year was marked by a few stopovers and special vacations because of the sport. In August 1942 he took part in the Greater German Youth Championships in Breslau , where he took third place in the presence of Baldur von Schirach over 400 meters of crawl. In the same year he also made his debut for the German men's water polo team , but only made one international appearance.

Training as a radio technician and wounded in World War II

Through his father's brother-in-law, the Schutzbund leader and self-employed radio shop manager Ludwig Bernaschek , Franz Zigon began training in Bernaschek's small shop on Mozartstrasse in the Upper Austrian capital after finishing school , before Bernaschek moved to a larger store in Spittelwiese . Although he liked the sales activities in the shop more than the work in the workshop, Zigon subsequently became a radio technician. During this time he got to know the Moravian-Austrian author Otto Stöber , whom Zigon called his second foster father after Kurt Patuzzi in later years. He passed his final apprenticeship examination in 1942 in Kurt Ansorge's radio-technical workshop in Linz's Bethlehemstrasse and, as already mentioned, was drafted into the Wehrmacht shortly afterwards .

During his military service, which, as already mentioned, he performed in Yugoslavia, he was wounded there while fighting against Tito's partisans in Tuzla . After hospital stays, he returned to his hometown and practiced swimming intensively again. In 1943 he then took part in an official water polo competition. At this point in time he had a foot in plaster of paris, which he tied off with cut bicycle tubes for the stay in the water. As a result, however, he blocked the blood, which he only noticed later and had led to a significant health risk. Because of this "offense" he could even have been prosecuted for degrading military strength , but this did not happen. Zigon experienced the end of the war in Linz, where he had already been a year at that time. After a double fracture of the calf and shin of his left leg, he had another hospital stay here after returning to Upper Austria via Belgrade, Zagreb and the hospital in the Hotel de France in Vienna at Christmas 1943. Since his injury could not have been properly repaired by an operation, this resulted in a shortening of the leg. Zigon was then written by the doctor to be suitable for domestic service and was then assigned to the Linz castle barracks , where he was responsible for the armory. He was later assigned to the news department due to his training as a radio technician. During this time he mostly repaired radios, but had a lot of freedom compared to his previous service and was often sent on patrols. At the same time, Zigon campaigned against the announced demolition of the Nibelungen Bridge .

After the end of the war, Zigon was involved in the development of the Austrian national water polo team from 1945 and had set himself the goal of participating in the Summer Olympics . On March 15, 1947, he was one of seven founding members involved in founding the General Sports Association of Upper Austria (ASVOÖ). After Colonel Eduard Schröder (1st chairman) and Walter Hauer (2nd chairman), Zigon, who at that time belonged to the I. Linz Swimming Club, was on the advisory board of the new sports association together with Otto Göbl, Rudolf Pichler, Ernst Steinbacher and Franz Pichler. At the 1948 Summer Olympics in London he would have been qualified as a member of the Austrian national team, but the ÖOC removed the water polo players from the field before the start of the Olympics for cost reasons, which was a serious disappointment for the then 24-year-old. Nevertheless, four years later he made it with the Austrians to the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki . The now 28-year-old took part in the first qualifying round match against the United Kingdom , with Austria losing just 3: 4. In the subsequent 6-0 victory in the second qualifying round, which also meant participation in the subsequent group stage, Zigon was again not in action. In Group A of the preliminary round, Austria met Italy on July 27, the United Kingdom again on July 29, and the United States on July 30. The native of Linz was only used in the 3-3 draw against Great Britain, the only point win by the Austrians in this group. As the last of group A, the Austrian national team was eliminated from the competition. Zigon, who was in the Austrian national team about 13 to 15 times in the course of his career, returned to his homeland via Scandinavia .

Withdrawal from top-class sport and focus on family and professional life

Although his physical performance gradually deteriorated, he was still active in state championships as a water polo player until 1960. Internationally, however, he no longer appeared and also largely withdrew into family life. He focused on his marriage, created a home by building a house in Zaubertal, and changed jobs when he switched to consumer electronics within the industry . Due to back problems and suffering as a long-term consequence of his war injury, he retired early in the early 1980s when he was 57 years old. Especially after his retirement, he joined again at swimming competitions and took by supporting the then ASVÖ Chairmen from the age of about 70 years with Masters swimming part. Zigon, who as a top athlete was 21 times national or gaume master and five times national champion, was involved in over 15 European and world championships in various age groups. In 2011 he broke his shoulder after falling off a ladder, but was back in the water a month later and it took a total of two years before he could put normal weight on his shoulder again. In 2013 he got dizzy during swimming training, whereupon he was taken to the Linz General Hospital and five stents were inserted. A week later he went back to his training facility and made his first swimming attempts.

Most recently in September 2018, now 94 years old, he completed his now favorite discipline over 50 meters back, in the age group 90 to 94, and was in this with a time of 1: 32.73, 10.32 seconds behind the four years younger French Jean Belloc runner-up. Over 100 meters back he took third place in the age group 90 to 94 with a time of 3: 46.17. In the 4 × 50 meter medley discipline, he appeared alongside Peter König (* 1940), Erhard Reichel (* 1946) and Alexander Patuzzi (* 1938), the son of his former coach and sponsor Kurt Patuzzi, and took part his three teammates from 1. LSK Heindl took third place. He also competed in the mixed 4 × 50 meter medley and was there with the Austrian team around Elly Kaiser (* 1937), Erhard Reichel (* 1946) and Helga Patuzzi (* 1945), wife of Alexander Patuzzi, with a time of 4: 47.82 third. In addition, he competed with König, Reichel and Patuzzi in the 4 × 50 meter medley and was also third in this with a time of 3: 50.29. In the mixed 4 × 50 meter freestyle, he achieved another third place with Waltraud Woss (* 1951), Alexander Patuzzi (* 1938) and Elly Kaiser (* 1937) with 3: 49.43.

After the death of his second wife, with whom he had been married for 50 years, in 2009 he sold the former joint house in the magic valley near Leonding and moved to Urfahr in an apartment in the same house where his daughter also lives. His first child, a son he had with his first wife, whom he met in 1939 in Linz's Parkbad and married after the war, now lives in Munich .

Because of his age and his kinship with the Bernascheks, he has been interviewed regularly since the 2000s, mostly for reports in newspapers, and asked about his impressions of the February uprising in 1934 , the annexation of Austria or the Nazi era as a witness .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ When the US tanks rolled over Hitler-Platz in Linz , accessed on December 26, 2019
  2. ↑ 50M BACKSTROKE MEN - 2018 European Masters Championships Slovenia (English), accessed on December 25, 2018
  3. ↑ 100M BACKSTROKE MEN - 2018 European Masters Championships Slovenia (English), accessed on December 25, 2018
  4. ↑ 4X50M MEDLEY MEN - 2018 European Masters Championships Slovenia (English), accessed on December 25, 2018
  5. ↑ 4X50M MEDLEY MIXED - 2018 European Masters Championships Slovenia (English), accessed on December 25, 2018
  6. ↑ 4X50M FREESTYLE MEN - 2018 European Masters Championships Slovenia (English), accessed on December 25, 2018
  7. ↑ 4X50M FREESTYLE MIXED - 2018 European Masters Championships Slovenia (English), accessed on December 25, 2018
personal data
SURNAME Zigon, Franz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian swimmer and water polo player
DATE OF BIRTH March 9, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Linz , Austria