Karl Molitor

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Karl "Moli" Molitor (born June 29, 1920 in Wengen ; † August 25, 2014 in Grindelwald ) was a Swiss ski racer . The Bernese Oberland is eleven victories the most successful skier in the over 90-year history of the Lauberhorn race and two-time medalist at the Olympic Games in 1948 from St. Moritz .

Career

Advancement and first successes until 1939

As the son of a shoemaker and owner of a sports shop, Karl Molitor came into contact with skiing very early on and showed great talent for this sport even in his childhood. At the age of 13 he made the youngest participant in the Virgin - ski jumping attention to himself, but then decided his main focus but the alpine disciplines downhill and slalom to place. Nonetheless, he took part in jumping competitions over and over again in his career, setting many a distance record.

His great misfortune, which he shared with many athletes of his generation, was that there were no international competitions in the years of his greatest performance due to the Second World War and the World Championships and Olympic Games were also canceled during this period. At the age of 19, Karl Molitor became known throughout Switzerland for winning the Lauberhorn run . The fact that he crossed the finish line nine seconds before the runner-up, the Austrian Willi Walch , despite a fall , caused a particular sensation. Only later did it become known that students had stamped a 200 m long shortcut into the snow for him in the final part of the route, which Molitor also used. “Something like that was still possible back then because the control gates were far apart,” Molitor said later in an interview and continued: “But it turned out to be so steep and narrow that I couldn't brake and promptly when turning onto the normal slope crashed » .

Also in 1939, he won the Megève downhill run and the second run at the Arlberg-Kandahar race in Mürren in front of the entire elite from Switzerland, France and Germany . At the FIS races in Zakopane , Poland, which later became the world championship , he came third behind the German stars Hellmut Lantschner and Josef Jennewein in downhill skiing, and a fall made an even better placement impossible. Following the world championship, Molitor won the downhill skiing title at the Swiss championships in Unterwasser .

Molitor got his basic fitness for the sport in summer as a mountain guide . In winter he trained together with the other Wengen ski greats of his time, such as Otto von Allmen , Heinz von Allmen , Rudolf Graf and Karl Schlunegger . At that time, skiing was still practiced on a purely amateur basis, which is why the athletes adapted the training units to their professional activity. In the early morning, Karl Molitor's training group ran on cross-country skis towards Mettlenalp and back, then trained in slalom and then went about their work until noon. While his teammates worked as ski instructors throughout the winter months, Molitor also helped out in his parents' sports shop. During the lunch break we went to the Lauberhorn for downhill training, then back to work and in the late afternoon for training on the ski jump .

Hit streak in the 1940s and Olympic Games in 1948

During the Second World War, international racing was initially severely restricted and later stopped entirely. For Swiss skiers, this meant that the competition between athletes was limited to national competition. Karl Molitor was at the height of his career in these years and achieved countless victories in downhill, slalom and alpine combined . In 1942 he celebrated winning the slalom and the combined competition at the Grand Prix in Megève.

From 1939 to 1947 he was the most successful participant in the Lauberhorn races to date with six victories in downhill runs, two in slaloms and three combination scores. By 1948 he won a total of eight Swiss championship titles in downhill (2), in slalom (3) and in combination (3). In Örnsköldsvik , Sweden , he won the Fare West Kandahar race in 1944, after which he coached the alpine team of the Swiss Ski Association until 1946 . In 1947 he spent two months in the United States and won the American championships in downhill, slalom and combination on his "Attenhofer skis", which also earned him an overall win at the American ski championships .

At the age of 28, he took part in the Winter Olympics in St. Moritz in 1948 and fulfilled his dream of an Olympic medal. In downhill skiing, he and his compatriot Ralph Olinger won the bronze medal behind Henri Oreiller and Franz Gabl . He got his second medal in the alpine combination, in which he only had to admit defeat to the winner Henri Oreiller. At the following championships of the Swiss Ski Association, which were also held in St. Moritz, he was crowned Swiss champion for the last time in slalom and combination and then ended his active career. Apart from the alpine circus, he remained active as an occasional ski jumper until the mid-1950s.

Private and business life

Karl Molitor temporarily withdrew from alpine skiing and concentrated on his private and business life together with his wife Antoinette Meyer- Molitor, who was also a successful skier. After having worked as a mountain guide and ski instructor in addition to skiing for years, he now took over his parents' sports shop and became the owner of a ski boot manufacturer. After a short time he was drawn back to sport and he was a member of the Downhill and Slalom Committee of the International Ski Federation (FIS) from 1951 to 1972 . In 1952, Molitor also took over the office of President of the Wengen Ski Club and the role of race director at the Lauberhorn races, which he held for 35 years. Karl Molitor remained an unparalleled athlete in the later years of his life, played tennis and hockey , regularly went mountain tours and swimming and also learned the game of golf , which he counted among his greatest hobbies. In 1986 he handed the management over to his son Rico, but still helped out in the business. Molitor died on August 25, 2014 at the age of 94 in a retirement home in Grindelwald.

Greatest successes

Olympic games

World championships

Swiss championships

  • 2 × Swiss champion in the downhill 1939, 1946
  • 3 × Swiss champions in slalom 1942, 1946, 1948
  • 3 × Swiss champions in Alpine Combined in 1945, 1946, 1948

Lauberhorn race

  • 6 × winners in downhill skiing in 1939, 1940, 1942, 1943, 1945, 1947
  • 2 × winners in slalom 1940, 1948
  • 3 × winner in the Alpine Combined 1940, 1946, 1948
  • 6 × second place 1941 (slalom), 1942 (combination), 1945 (slalom, combination), 1946 (downhill), 1947 (combination)
  • 3 × third place 1939 (combination), 1946 (slalom), 1948 (downhill)

Other significant achievements

  • Victory in the downhill at the 1939 Megève Grand Prix
  • Victory in slalom and alpine combination at the Grand Prix of Megève 1942
  • Winner of the Fare West Kandahar race in Oernköldsvik in 1944
  • Discipline winner in downhill, slalom and combined at the American ski championships in 1947
  • Overall winner of the American ski championships in 1947
  • 2nd place in the downhill run of the Arlberg-Kandahar race in Mürren in 1939

literature

  • Karl Molitor: Living memories. Athlete's heart, what more could you want? Verlag Schlaefli, Interlaken 2012, ISBN 978-3-85884-095-0

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ «He was a figurehead» Obituary in the Jungfrau Zeitung on August 27, 2014, accessed on August 28, 2014
personal data
SURNAME Molitor, Karl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Molitor, Moli (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss ski racer
DATE OF BIRTH June 29, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Wengen
DATE OF DEATH August 25, 2014
Place of death Grindelwald