Hans Grugger
Hans Grugger | |||||||||||||
Full name | Johann Grugger | ||||||||||||
nation | Austria | ||||||||||||
birthday | 13th December 1981 (age 38) | ||||||||||||
place of birth | Bad Hofgastein , Austria | ||||||||||||
size | 180 cm | ||||||||||||
job | Learned: cook and hotel clerk | ||||||||||||
Career | |||||||||||||
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discipline | Downhill , super-G , giant slalom | ||||||||||||
society | WSV Bad Hofgastein | ||||||||||||
status | resigned | ||||||||||||
End of career | April 24, 2012 | ||||||||||||
Medal table | |||||||||||||
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Placements in the Alpine Ski World Cup | |||||||||||||
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Johann "Hans" Grugger (born December 13, 1981 in Bad Hofgastein ) is a former Austrian ski racer . He became junior vice world champion in giant slalom in 2001 and competed in the ski world cup from 2003 to 2011 , in which he won four races. His career was repeatedly interrupted by injuries.
biography
Grugger started skiing at the age of three. He became a member of the Salzburg State Ski Association in 1996 and took part in FIS races for the first time in November of the same year . As a teenager, several injuries interrupted his career, in January 1998 he suffered the first cruciate ligament rupture during training for the European Cup downhill runs in Zauchensee , scheduled for January 12th and 13th . In 1999 Grugger was accepted into the junior squad of the Austrian Ski Association , but due to a cervical vertebra injury he had to take a longer break in 2000. In 2001 the Salzburg native took part in the Junior World Championships in Verbier and celebrated his first major success with second place in the giant slalom behind his compatriot Hannes Reiter . A short time later he won three FIS races in a row in Megève .
From the 2001/02 season , Grugger also got good placements in the European Cup and he developed into a downhill and Super-G specialist. In February 2002 he finished in the top three for the first time in the downhill from Tarvisio . He was able to improve further in the 2002/03 season and with his two victories at the season finale in Piancavallo reached third place in the downhill classification, fourth in the Super-G and seventh place in the overall classification.
After his good performance in the European Cup, Grugger started in the World Cup in the 2003/04 season . He made his debut on November 29th on the Lake Louise Downhill and finished seventh straight away. After further top 10 results, he finished third in the downhill from St. Anton in February and was on the podium for the first time. He made his breakthrough to the top of the world in the 2004/05 season when he won the runs from Bormio and Chamonix . At the 2005 World Cup , however, he did not achieve a top result and as the third-best Austrian he was ninth downhill at the same time as the French David Poisson . In the Downhill World Cup, the Salzburg native came fifth at the end of the season and tenth overall. In April 2005 he was Austrian downhill champion.
In December 2005 Grugger celebrated his third World Cup victory in the Super-G from Val Gardena , but at the end of the year he had a bad fall on the downhill from Bormio, suffered a pelvic injury and had to end the season early. At the beginning of next winter , Grugger finished fourth in the Lake Louise Downhill. He then did not come in the top ten for a long time and failed in the team's internal qualification for the World Cup in Åre . After the missed World Championships, he finished second in the downhill from Garmisch-Partenkirchen before winning his fourth World Cup race, the Super-G in Kvitfjell , in March .
On April 5, 2007, Grugger suffered a torn cruciate ligament in his left knee during ski tests in Saalbach-Hinterglemm . In August he started again with snow training and at the beginning of the 2007/08 season he started again in the World Cup in Lake Louise. He did not take part in the next races because he was clearly behind in training. On December 28, 2007, Grugger had to undergo another knee operation (rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament, meniscus tear and a cartilage injury, probably already sustained during a training fall in Lake Louise), which ended the season for him. After summer training, Grugger suffered from bacterial inflammation in his knee, which is why his comeback was delayed. In January 2009, Grugger wanted to start at the European Cup downhill runs in Wengen in order to prepare for the World Cup races that would take place one week later. In training for the EC races, however, he again suffered a cruciate ligament rupture in his right knee, which is why he was canceled for the second season in a row.
On November 28, 2009, after a two-year break from racing, Grugger made his comeback in the Lake Louise World Cup descent. After finishing this race in 56th place, he returned to the points a little later and achieved a total of four top 10 results in the 2009/10 season , all in the downhill. The best result was a fifth place at the World Cup final in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. At the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver , he finished 22nd in the downhill. At the end of the season, Grugger was Austrian downhill champion for the second time.
In the first half of the 2010/11 season, Grugger was among the fastest 20 in three World Cup runs before he was seriously injured again on January 20, 2011 during downhill training on the Kitzbühel Streif . When he fell in a mousetrap , he suffered a lung injury and a severe traumatic brain injury . After a month in the intensive care unit of the neurosurgical university clinic in Innsbruck , he was transferred to the Hochzirl regional hospital for rehabilitation and was discharged from there on March 18. On April 24, 2012, 15 months after the serious fall on the Streif, Grugger announced the end of his career for health reasons. The aftermath of the fall did not allow his planned comeback.
successes
Olympic games
- Vancouver 2010 : 22nd departure
World championships
- Bormio 2005 : 9th descent
World cup
- 2004/05 season : 10th overall World Cup, 5th downhill classification
- Nine podium places, including four wins:
date | place | country | discipline |
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December 29, 2004 | Bormio | Italy | Departure |
January 8, 2005 | Chamonix | France | Departure |
December 16, 2005 | Val Gardena | Italy | Super G |
March 11, 2007 | Kvitfjell | Norway | Super G |
European Cup
- Season 2002/03 : 7th overall ranking, 3rd downhill, 4th super-G
- Four podium places, including two wins:
date | place | country | discipline |
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March 11, 2003 | Piancavallo | Italy | Departure |
March 12, 2003 | Piancavallo | Italy | Super G |
Junior World Championships
- Verbier 2001 : 2nd giant slalom, 16th descent
Austrian championships
More Achievements
- 5 victories in FIS races
Web links
- Hans Grugger in the database of the International Ski Federation (English)
- Hans Grugger in the database of Ski-DB (English)
- Hans Grugger in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
literature
- Austrian Ski Association (Ed.): Austrian Ski Stars from A – Z. Ablinger & Garber, Hall in Tirol 2008, ISBN 978-3-9502285-7-1 , pp. 118-119.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hans Grugger injured again. skialpin.ch, January 8, 2009.
- ↑ Hans Grugger: Cruciate ligament from. skionline.ch, January 8, 2009.
- ↑ After emergency surgery in artificial deep sleep. derStandard.at , January 21, 2011.
- ↑ "He recovered quickly from the operation." derStandard.at , February 21, 2011.
- ↑ The new life of Hans Grugger. derStandard.at , March 18, 2011.
- ↑ Health comes first. sport.orf.at , April 24, 2012.
- ^ The final line of the fighter Grugger , derStandard.at of April 24, 2012, accessed on December 29, 2015.
personal data | |
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SURNAME | Grugger, Hans |
ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Grugger, Johann |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Austrian ski racer |
DATE OF BIRTH | December 13, 1981 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Bad Hofgastein , Austria |