The South Tyrolean Plank won the gold medal in the downhill at the first ever European Junior Championships in 1972 . After that he became one of the few drivers who was able to stand up to the dominant Austrian team around Franz Klammer and the " Crazy Canucks " in the World Cup descents. Between 1973 and 1980 he celebrated five victories. Overall, Plank was able to place in the top ten 46 times, almost without exception in downhill runs. He only started sporadically in the technical disciplines.
When he won his first win (December 10, 1973 in Val-d'Isère ), he was even considered an “insider tip” (spelling at the time), although he only finished eighth in the points in the previous season (after that, a difficult one had him Fall practically thrown out of the race by the end of the season); Plank thus became the youngest winner of a men's world cup downhill run (which he still is to date, March 22, 2017).