1985 World Grass Ski Championships

1985 World Grass Ski Championships logo

The 4th Grass Ski World Championship took place from September 6th to 8th, 1985 at Teckberg in Owen in the German state of Baden-Württemberg . The organizer was the International Grass Ski Association (IGSV), the executive association of the German Ski Association (DSV) and the organizer of the Gymnastics and Sports Club Owen (TSV Owen). The World Cup was the last major event of the IGSV, which decided to dissolve it at an extraordinary congress in Owen one day before the World Cup opened. Three months earlier, the International Ski Federation (FIS) had decided at its congress in Vancouver to include grass skiing in its ranks by creating its own committee. The town of Owen and the Teckberg, where grass ski races have been held since 1968, had previously been the scene of important international competitions several times. The final of the European Cup took place four times and the European Championship took place on Teck in 1982 . The world championship was the highlight of these events. Three years later, the last grass ski race to date was held in Owen, the International German Championships in 1988. After that, interest in grass skiing quickly waned and there were no more competitions on the Teck. The world championship opened on the evening of September 6th with a celebration in the Owener Teckhalle. On Saturday, September 7th, the giant slalom took place and on Sunday, September 8th, the slalom competition . The combined rating was calculated from these two races using a points system. On Sunday afternoon, the Kilomètre-Lancé high- speed race followed , for which no world championship title was awarded. Around 2500 spectators on Saturday and 6000 on Sunday attended the races.

Route data

All races were held on the Teckhang "Bölle" (coordinates of the start area: 48 ° 35 ′ 7.32 ″ north, 9 ° 27 ′ 56.67 ″ east ). Race director was the German Norbert Mendyk, technical delegate of the International Grass Ski Association (IGSV) of the Austrians Hermann Ziseritsch.

	Giant slalom	slalom
date	7th of September	September 8th
Start time 1st run	Women: 11:00 a.m. Men: 11:30 a.m.	Women: 10:00 a.m. Men: 10:30 a.m.
Start time 2nd run	Women: 3:30 p.m. Men: 4:00 p.m.	Women: 1:45 p.m. Men: 2:15 p.m.
Start above sea level	613 m	613 m
Sea level destination	490 m	515 m
Height difference	123 m	098 m
Route length	560 m	430 m
Course setter 1st run	Gerhard Großmann (FRG)	Sepp Calonder (SUI)
Course setter 2nd run	Achille Cattaneo (ITA)	Manfred Peschek (AUT)
Goals 1st run	25th	41
Goals 2nd run	26th	39
Weather	sunny, cloudless	cloudy, partly sunny
temperature	23 ° C	22 ° C

Attendees

118 athletes (94 men and 24 women) from 13 nations had registered for the World Championship (the number of men and women in brackets):

Australia (6 + 0)  Belgium (2 + 0)  Brazil (1 + 0)  Federal Republic of Germany (10 + 6)  France (13 + 1)  Italy (9 + 3)  Japan (4 + 1)

Austria (11 + 5)  Switzerland (11 + 4)  Czechoslovakia (6 + 0)  Hungary (4 + 2)  United States (10 + 1)  United Kingdom (7 + 1)

The most successful participants with two gold medals each were the Austrian Ingrid Hirschhofer and the Swiss Richi Christen .

Medal table

space	country	gold	silver	bronze	total
1	Austria	3	1	2	6th
2	Switzerland	2	3	1	6th
3	BR Germany	1	-	1	2
4th	France	-	2	-	2
5	Italy	-	-	2	2

Results gentlemen

slalom

space	Surname	country	Time 1.	Time 2.	total
01	Richi Christians	SUI	35.25 s	32.35 s	1: 07.60 min
02	Erwin Gansner	SUI	34.60 s	33.65 s	1: 08.25 min
03	Hermann Ellemunt	ITA	36.27 s	32.92 s	1: 09.19 min
04th	Markus Dejori	ITA	36.08 s	33.65 s	1: 09.73 min
05	Hans Ruedi Mann	SUI	36.44 s	33.51 s	1: 09.95 min
06th	Thomas Koller	SUI	36.06 s	34.02 s	1: 10.08 min
07th	Vincent Riewe	FRG	36.73 s	34.08 s	1: 10.81 min
08th	Berndt Lischka	AUT	36.89 s	34.17 s	1: 11.06 min
09	Jörg Breiting	FRG	37.15 s	34.03 s	1: 11.18 min
09	Marcus Peschek	AUT	36.88 s	34.30 s	1: 11.18 min
11	Werner Fagerer	AUT	37.04 s	34.19 s	1: 11.23 min
12	Peter Stein	FRG	37.67 s	35.08 s	1: 12.75 min
12	Götz Scheffler	FRG	37.98 s	34.77 s	1: 12.75 min
14th	Nigel Smith	GBR	38.31 s	35.17 s	1: 13.48 min
15th	Arno Tscharner	SUI	39.07 s	35.28 s	1: 14.35 min
16	Claude Kuntzmann	FRA	38.17 s	36.37 s	1: 14.54 min
17th	Colin Beck	GBR	39.45 s	35.50 s	1: 14.95 min
18th	Bertrand Kempf	FRA	39.14 s	36.15 s	1: 15.29 min
19th	Lubomír Masár	TCH	40.15 s	38.08 s	1: 18.23 min
20th	András Völgyesi	HUN	41.48 s	36.79 s	1: 18.27 min
21st	Juraj Breštenský	TCH	42.46 s	38.77 s	1: 21.23 min
22nd	Laurent Jouffroy	FRA	39.71 s	41.55 s	1: 21.26 min
23	Guy Wilmott	OUT	43.32 s	39.21 s	1: 22.53 min
24	Juraj Tinka	TCH	42.52 s	40.21 s	1: 22.73 min
25th	Ivan Herinek	TCH	43.80 s	40.07 s	1: 23.87 min
26th	Shūji Hachinohe	JPN	44.40 s	40.41 s	1: 24.81 min
27	Lee Rubenstein	United States	44.89 s	40.65 s	1: 25.54 min
28	Patrick Fabre	FRA	56.80 s	37.56 s	1: 34.36 min
29	József Mekli	HUN	55.60 s	48.26 s	1: 43.86 min
30th	John Sowers	United States	48.19 s	58.92 s	1: 47.11 min
31	Gary Henry	United States	59.38 s	52.33 s	1: 51.71 min
32	Horst Locher	United States	1: 03.90 min	48.52 s	1: 52.42 min
33	Minoru Teraoka	JPN	1: 02.04 min	56.55 s	1: 58.59 min
34	Toshihide Shigeno	JPN	1: 07.50 min	57.89 s	2: 05.39 min
35	John Addicott	GBR	1: 15.25 min	56.91 s	2: 12.16 min
36	Yōichi Fujita	JPN	1: 16.99 min	1: 06.24 min	2: 23.23 min

Swiss double victory in slalom: Richi Christen became world champion in slalom for the second time since 1981, while defending champion Erwin Gansner won the silver medal as he had done four years earlier. Bronze went to the Italian Hermann Ellemunt , the 1984 European giant slalom champion, for whom it was his only World Cup medal.

Of 82 runners who had started, 37 dropped out and a further nine were disqualified; 36 runners (44 percent) were included in the ranking.

• Eliminated in the first run (27):

Klaus Spinka ( AUT ), Roberto Parisi ( ITA ), Richard Karrer ( AUT ), Heinz Benz ( SUI ), Horst Möhwald ( FRG ), Thomas Amesmann ( AUT ), Jürgen Single ( FRG ), Christoph Ganzer ( FRG ), Hans- Ueli Brand ( SUI ), Massimo Cervellin ( ITA ), Beat Bircher ( SUI ), Ingmar Tschofen ( AUT ), Matteo Colombo ( ITA ), Chary Fuhrmann ( FRA ), Philippe Herrscher ( FRA ), Brice Martin ( FRA ), Jonathan Paley ( GBR ), Craig White ( AUS ), Corey Wilson ( AUS ), Miklós Völgyesi ( HUN ), Patrice Budinger ( FRA ), Lothar Christian Munder ( BRA ), Ladislav Pišný ( TCH ), Derek Nelson ( GBR ), Craig McCordic ( USA ), Yves Desgouttes ( USA ), Gary Longaberger ( USA )

• Disqualified in the first run (4):

Helmut Messner ( ITA ), Daniel Misson ( BEL ), Hannes Hofstädter ( AUT ), Reto Dosch ( SUI )

• Eliminated in the second run (10):

Martin Messner ( ITA ), Egon Hofer ( AUT ), Thomas Schmid ( FRG ), Thomas Bretting ( FRG ), Michel Dufoir ( FRA ), David Read ( AUS ), Gary Grant ( AUS ), Pal Bergmann ( HUN ), Mike Hann ( USA ), Phil Clark ( USA )

• Disqualified in the second run (5):

Rainer Großmann ( FRG ), Anton Wörndl ( AUT ), Roland German ( SUI ), Laurence Beck ( GBR ), Patrice Holweg ( FRA )

• Not started in the first run (3):

Luciano Acerboni ( ITA ), Chris Rogers ( AUS ), Nick Nedd ( USA )

Giant slalom

space	Surname	country	Time 1.	Time 2.	total
01	Rainer Grossmann	FRG	36.20 s	38.68 s	1: 14.88 min
02	Erwin Gansner	SUI	36.54 s	38.79 s	1: 15.33 min
03	Anton Wörndl	AUT	36.66 s	38.86 s	1: 15.52 min
04th	Richi Christians	SUI	36.89 s	38.68 s	1: 15.57 min
05	Markus Dejori	ITA	36.25 s	39.34 s	1: 15.59 min
06th	Vincent Riewe	FRG	36.71 s	38.99 s	1: 15.70 min
07th	Heinz Benz	SUI	36.87 s	39.59 s	1: 16.46 min
08th	Martin Messner	ITA	37.46 s	39.54 s	1: 17.00 min
09	Werner Fagerer	AUT	37.71 s	39.51 s	1: 17.22 min
10	Matteo Colombo	ITA	37.56 s	39.75 s	1: 17.31 min
11	Horst Möhwald	FRG	37.22 s	40.13 s	1: 17.35 min
12	Klaus Spinka	AUT	37.60 s	39.84 s	1: 17.44 min
13	Marcus Peschek	AUT	37.67 s	40.03 s	1: 17.70 min
14th	Thomas Bretting	FRG	37.83 s	40.16 s	1: 17.99 min
15th	Hans Ruedi Mann	SUI	38.13 s	40.05 s	1: 18.18 min
16	Egon Hofer	AUT	37.72 s	40.59 s	1: 18.31 min
17th	Thomas Amesmann	AUT	37.84 s	40.52 s	1: 18.36 min
18th	Richard Karrer	AUT	38.58 s	39.99 s	1: 18.57 min
19th	Götz Scheffler	FRG	37.91 s	40.77 s	1: 18.68 min
20th	Hans-Ueli Brand	SUI	38.40 s	40.35 s	1: 18.75 min
21st	Peter Stein	FRG	38.35 s	40.48 s	1: 18.83 min
22nd	Thomas Koller	SUI	38.47 s	40.37 s	1: 18.84 min
23	Hannes Hofstädter	AUT	38.65 s	40.86 s	1: 19.51 min
24	Christoph Ganzer	FRG	38.27 s	41.34 s	1: 19.61 min
25th	Urs Schär	SUI	38.38 s	41.27 s	1: 19.65 min
26th	Jürgen Single	FRG	38.91 s	40.77 s	1: 19.68 min
27	Beat Bircher	SUI	38.98 s	40.95 s	1: 19.93 min
28	Ingmar Tschofen	AUT	38.85 s	41.26 s	1: 20.11 min
29	Arno Tscharner	SUI	38.81 s	41.34 s	1: 20.15 min
30th	Berndt Lischka	AUT	39.21 s	41.13 s	1: 20.34 min
31	Nigel Smith	GBR	39.21 s	41.18 s	1: 20.39 min
32	Roland German	SUI	39.02 s	41.48 s	1: 20.50 min
33	David Read	OUT	39.60 s	42.02 s	1: 21.62 min
34	András Völgyesi	HUN	40.42 s	42.94 s	1: 23.36 min
35	Bertrand Kempf	FRA	40.56 s	43.21 s	1: 23.77 min
36	Laurent Jouffroy	FRA	40.46 s	43.34 s	1: 23.80 min
37	Colin Beck	GBR	41.26 s	43.02 s	1: 24.28 min
38	Laurence Beck	GBR	41.33 s	43.26 s	1: 24.59 min
39	Chary Carter	FRA	41.05 s	43.77 s	1: 24.82 min
40	Lubomír Masár	TCH	41.27 s	43.73 s	1: 25.00 min
41	Miklós Völgyesi	HUN	41.07 s	44.09 s	1: 25.16 min
42	Lothar Christian Munder	BRA	41.36 s	43.96 s	1: 25.32 min
43	Philippe ruler	FRA	41.99 s	43.82 s	1: 25.81 min
44	Yōichi Fujita	JPN	42.90 s	43.96 s	1: 26.86 min
45	Guy Wilmott	OUT	41.72 s	45.49 s	1: 27.21 min
46	Michel Dufoir	FRA	43.61 s	44.82 s	1: 28.43 min
47	John Addicott	GBR	43.92 s	46.85 s	1: 30.77 min
48	Ladislav Pišný	TCH	45.37 s	45.95 s	1: 31.32 min
49	Shūji Hachinohe	JPN	47.54 s	43.88 s	1: 31.42 min
50	Toshihide Shigeno	JPN	45.42 s	46.31 s	1: 31.73 min
51	Gary Henry	United States	45.85 s	46.80 s	1: 32.65 min
52	Minoru Teraoka	JPN	46.20 s	47.74 s	1: 33.94 min
53	Corey Wilson	OUT	40.58 s	54.18 s	1: 34.76 min
54	József Mekli	HUN	49.96 s	45.40 s	1: 35.36 min
55	Phil Clark	United States	48.01 s	47.45 s	1: 35.46 min
56	Juraj Tinka	TCH	46.82 s	48.71 s	1: 35.53 min
57	Yves Desgouttes	United States	44.27 s	54.70 s	1: 38.97 min
58	Lee Rubenstein	United States	44.06 s	56.46 s	1: 40.52 min
59	Ivan Herinek	TCH	44.64 s	56.08 s	1: 40.72 min
60	John Sowers	United States	55.51 s	45.50 s	1: 41.01 min
61	Gary Grant	OUT	49.00 s	56.36 s	1: 45.36 min

The 19-year-old German Rainer Großmann won his first world championship title in giant slalom, which was followed by another six by 1993. Silver went to the 1981 world champion, Erwin Gansner from Switzerland; The Austrian Anton Wörndl won bronze . For the three-time Austrian champion, it was his only medal at world championships.

Of the 85 runners who started, 18 dropped out and another six were disqualified; 61 runners (72 percent) were included in the ranking.

• Eliminated in the first run (14):

Luciano Acerboni ( ITA ), Helmut Messner ( ITA ), Jörg Bretting ( FRG ), Massimo Cervellin ( ITA ), Claude Kuntzmann ( FRA ), Patrick Fabre ( FRA ), Pal Bergmann ( HUN ), Juraj Breštenský ( TCH ), Patrice Budinger ( FRA ), Nick Nedd ( USA ), Horst Locher ( USA ), Craig McCordic ( USA ), Derek Nelson ( GBR ), Gary Longaberger ( USA )

• Disqualified in the first run (5):

Roberto Parisi ( ITA ), Hermann Ellemunt ( ITA ), Daniel Misson ( BEL ), Brice Martin ( FRA ), Patrice Holweg ( FRA )

• Eliminated in the second run (4):

Thomas Schmid ( FRG ), Craig White ( AUS ), Chris Rogers ( AUS ), Mike Hann ( USA )

• Disqualified in the second run (1):

Jonathan Paley ( GBR )

combination

space	Surname	country	Points RS	Points SL	total
01	Richi Christians	SUI	007.15	000.00	007.15
02	Erwin Gansner	SUI	004.67	007.46	012.13
03	Markus Dejori	ITA	007.35	024.18	031.53
04th	Vincent Riewe	FRG	008.49	036.17	044.66
05	Hans Ruedi Mann	SUI	033.62	026.64	060.26
06th	Werner Fagerer	AUT	023.99	040.78	064.77
07th	Thomas Koller	SUI	040.17	028.09	068.26
08th	Marcus Peschek	AUT	028.82	040.23	069.05
09	Berndt Lischka	AUT	054.87	039.91	094.78
10	Götz Scheffler	FRG	038.59	057.24	095.83
11	Peter Stein	FRG	040.07	057.24	097.31
12	Nigel Smith	GBR	055.35	065.02	120.37
13	Arno Tscharner	SUI	053.02	074.20	127.22
14th	Bertrand Kempf	FRA	087.46	083.99	171.45
15th	Colin Beck	GBR	092.19	080.46	172.65
16	András Völgyesi	HUN	083.63	114.26	197.89
17th	Lubomír Masár	TCH	098.82	113.86	212.68
18th	Laurent Jouffroy	FRA	087.74	143.48	231.22
19th	Guy Wilmott	OUT	118.83	155.57	274.40
20th	Shūji Hachinohe	JPN	155.59	176.82	332.41
21st	Juraj Tinka	TCH	189.87	157.46	347.33
22nd	Ivan Herinek	TCH	231.12	168.13	399.25
23	Lee Rubenstein	United States	229.57	183.50	413.07
24	József Mekli	HUN	188.49	334.79	523.28
25th	Gary Henry	United States	166.01	391.60	557.61
26th	John Sowers	United States	233.36	358.81	592.17
27	Minoru Teraoka	JPN	176.79	438.19	614.98
28	Toshihide Shigeno	JPN	158.23	481.66	639.89
29	John Addicott	GBR	150.03	522.66	672.69
30th	Yōichi Fujita	JPN	115.70	585.37	701.07

After fourth place in the giant slalom, the Swiss Richi Christen secured victory in the slalom also in the combination. His compatriot Erwin Ganser , who was combination world champion for the last two times, also won the silver medal in combination with silver in the slalom and giant slalom. Fifth place in the giant slalom and fourth place in the slalom was enough for the Italian Markus Dejori for the bronze medal in the combination.

30 runners finished both the slalom and the giant slalom and were rated in the combination.

Results women

slalom

space	Surname	country	Time 1.	Time 2.	total
01	Ingrid Hirschhofer	AUT	40.44 s	36.90 s	1: 17.34 min
02	Carole Petitjean	FRA	40.30 s	38.02 s	1: 18.32 min
03	Gabi Pimper	AUT	41.53 s	37.84 s	1: 19.37 min
04th	Martina Bauknecht	FRG	42.08 s	38.93 s	1: 21.01 min
05	Brigitte Büsser	SUI	43.44 s	40.49 s	1: 23.93 min
06th	Ingeborg Röschinger	FRG	43.66 s	41.49 s	1: 25.15 min
07th	Tiziana Tonon	ITA	43.62 s	42.33 s	1: 25.95 min
08th	Bettina Kastl	FRG	48.63 s	37.69 s	1: 26.32 min
09	Lesley Beck	GBR	53.13 s	39.00 s	1: 32.13 min
10	Agnes Koch	HUN	1: 14.61 min	1: 02.58 min	2: 17.19 min
11	Hiroko Shigeno	JPN	1: 57.39 min	1: 12.40 min	3: 09.79 min

The Austrian Ingrid Hirschhofer won the slalom world champion for the second time since 1979, while the 1981 world champion, the French Carole Petitjean , won the silver medal this time. Third place went to Austrian Gabi Pimper , who had already won bronze in the giant slalom four years earlier.

Of the 21 runners who started, eight dropped out and two more were disqualified; eleven runners (53 percent) were included in the ranking.

• Eliminated in the first run (6):

Karin Müller ( FRG ), Cinzia Valt ( ITA ), Karin Schmid ( FRG ), Mirella Parisi ( ITA ), Petra Huber ( AUT ), Heidi Rüesch ( SUI )

• Disqualified in the first run (1):

Karin Hartmann ( AUT )

• Eliminated in the second run (2):

Claudia Otratowitz ( AUT ), Karen McCordic ( USA )

• Disqualified in the second run (1):

Heidi Bösch ( SUI )

Giant slalom

space	Surname	country	Time 1.	Time 2.	total
01	Claudia Otratowitz	AUT	39.23 s	41.75 s	1: 20.98 min
02	Karin Hartmann	AUT	39.04 s	42.34 s	1: 21.38 min
03	Ingrid Hirschhofer	AUT	40.16 s	42.77 s	1: 22.93 min
04th	Karin Schmid	FRG	40.96 s	43.38 s	1: 24.34 min
05	Bettina Kastl	FRG	41.88 s	43.15 s	1: 25.03 min
06th	Carole Petitjean	FRA	41.78 s	44.12 s	1: 25.90 min
07th	Brigitte Büsser	SUI	41.67 s	44.54 s	1: 26.21 min
08th	Ingeborg Röschinger	FRG	42.07 s	44.46 s	1: 26.53 min
09	Astrid Ecker	AUT	42.37 s	44.24 s	1: 26.61 min
10	Heidi Boesch	SUI	41.75 s	45.18 s	1: 26.93 min
11	Lesley Beck	GBR	42.75 s	44.38 s	1: 27.13 min
12	Agnes Koch	HUN	53.07 s	52.22 s	1: 45.29 min
13	Hiroko Shigeno	JPN	1: 28.75 min	1: 23.03 min	2: 51.78 min

For the first time at the Grass Ski World Championships, an association managed to win all three medals. The Austrian Claudia Otratowitz won ahead of her compatriots Karin Hartmann and the defending champion Ingrid Hirschhofer . For Otratowitz and Hartmann, winning the gold and silver medals were the greatest successes of their careers.

Of the 21 runners who started, seven dropped out and one more was disqualified; 13 runners (62 percent) were included in the ranking.

• Eliminated in the first run (7):

Cinzia Valt ( ITA ), Martina Bauknecht ( FRG ), Karin Müller ( FRG ), Tiziana Tonon ( ITA ), Mirella Parisi ( ITA ), Heidi Rüesch ( SUI ), Karen McCordic ( USA )

• Disqualified in the first run (1):

Gabi Pimper ( AUT )

• In the second run there were no cancellations or disqualifications.

combination

space	Surname	country	Points RS	Points SL	total
1	Ingrid Hirschhofer	AUT	018.55	000.00	0018.55
2	Carole Petitjean	FRA	045.98	009.81	0055.79
3	Brigitte Büsser	SUI	048.79	063.73	0112.54
4th	Bettina Kastl	FRG	038.05	085.64	0123.69
5	Ingeborg Rüschinger	FRG	051.68	075.00	0126.68
6th	Lesley Beck	GBR	057.07	136.42	0193.49
7th	Agnes Koch	HUN	204.66	446.84	0651.50
8th	Hiroko Shigeno	JPN	586.28	699.86	1286.14

After third place in the giant slalom, the Austrian Ingrid Hirschhofer also secured the gold medal in the combination - for the third time after 1979 and 1983. Second place in the slalom and sixth place in the giant slalom went to the French Carole Petitjean , who 1981 was combined world champion. The Swiss Brigitte Büsser achieved third place with fifth place in the slalom and seventh place in the giant slalom and thus won her only World Championship medal.

Eight runners finished both the slalom and the giant slalom and were classified in the combination.

Kilomètre Lancé

space	Surname	country	Speed (3rd run)
01	Erwin Gansner	SUI	85.22 km / h
02	Heinz Benz	SUI	84.96 km / h
03	Richi Christians	SUI	84.87 km / h
04th	Werner Fagerer	AUT	84.8x km / h
05	Thomas Amesmann	AUT	84.1x km / h
06th	Hans-Ueli Brand	SUI	83.7x km / h
07th	Richard Karrer	AUT	83.6x km / h
08th	Thomas Schmid	FRG	81.5x km / h
09	Marcus Peschek	AUT	81.1x km / h
10	Roland German	SUI	81.1x km / h
11	Reto Dosch	SUI	80.6x km / h
12	Ingo Pelikan	SUI	80.0x km / h
13	Hans Gerber	SUI	79.6x km / h
14th	Laurence Beck	GBR	79.4x km / h
15th	Rainer Grossmann	FRG	-

Since 1973, Owen has been the only venue for such high-speed races in grass skiing, in which the runners descend the slope in a straight line, comparable to speed skiing on snow. This competition was not an official part of the world championship, therefore no world championship title was awarded. The race was held in three rounds, whereby in the third and decisive run only the fastest 15 of the second run were allowed to start. The speed was determined on a 25 meter long measuring section. The winner Erwin Gansner was unable to improve his own three-year-old world record of 86.882 km / h due to the slope that had become damp after the onset of rain. In the first such competition in 1973, the French Richard Martin achieved a speed of just over 61 km / h.

Web links

• Protocols, start and result lists, etc. on the TSV Owen website
• Videos on the TSV Owen website
• Various newspaper reports on the TSV Owen website