Harald Winkler

Harald Winkler (born December 17, 1962 in Graz ) is a former Austrian bobsleigh driver who was Olympic champion in the four-man bobsleigh in 1992 .

Athletic career

The 1.95 m tall Harald Winkler from the Styrian bobsleigh club took part in the 1988 Winter Olympics as a push for bobsleigh pilot Ingo Appelt . With the two-man bobsleigh , Appelt and Winkler took fifth place, with Josef Muigg and Gerhard Redl , the four-man bobsleigh took seventh place. At the 1989 European bobsleigh championships , the Austrian four-man bobsleigh with Ingo Appelt, Harald Winkler, Gerhard Redl and Jürgen Mandl won the title; after 1978 it was Austria's second European four-man bobsleigh title. In 1990 Austria won gold and silver in the four-man bobsleigh, behind the bob driven by Peter Kienast , Appelt, Redl, Mandl and Winkler received the silver medal. At the 1990 World Bobsleigh Championship , the Swiss four-man bobsleigh, controlled by Gustav Weder, won ahead of Harald Czudaj from the GDR, while Appelt, Redl, Mandl and Winkler received bronze medals. Ingo Appelt and Harald Winkler experienced the high point of their careers together with Gerhard Haidacher and Thomas Schroll at the 1992 Olympic Games in Albertville. With two hundredths of a second ahead of Wolfgang Hoppe's German bobsleigh , the Austrians won the gold medal, which is still the only Olympic gold medal for Austrian bobsledders to date (as of the 2014 Winter Games).

After Ingo Appelt's career ended, Winkler and Haidacher switched to pilot Hubert Schösser . At the European Bobsleigh Championship in 1993 , the Swiss Gustav Weder won ahead of the German Dirk Wiese , followed by Hubert Schösser, Gerhard Redl, Harald Winkler and Gerhard Haidacher the bronze medal. In the FIBT World Championships 1993 won also Gustav Weder, the Austrian Bobsled won the silver medal. At his third start at the Olympic Games in 1994 in Lillehammer , Winkler missed a medal by almost four tenths of a second with Hubert Schösser's four-man bobsleigh.

Web links

• Harald Winkler in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• World championships in four-man bobsleigh
• European championships in the four-man bobsleigh