Wirnsberger was a graduate of the Schladming Ski School . As one of the best Carinthian junior runners - in 1980 he was the Austrian student champion in giant slalom - he made the jump into the squad of the Austrian Ski Association in the mid-1980s . Wirnsberger was an all-rounder and therefore a good combiner. He himself described the descent as his favorite discipline. At the 1986 Junior World Championships in Bad Kleinkirchheim , he was third in the slalom, four in the downhill and five in the giant slalom junior world champion in combination. In the same year he became Austrian youth champion in slalom and combined.
In the summer of 1987 Wirnsberger suffered a cruciate ligament rupture while training in New Zealand , which is why he had to pause the next winter. Initially, Wirnsberger was primarily at the start in the European Cup , but also made individual World Cup appearances . He won his first World Cup points on December 22nd, 1988 with eighth place in the combination of St. Anton am Arlberg . After 1989 Austrian champion had become in the downhill and in combination, followed from the 1989-90 season regular start in the World Cup. That winter he achieved his best World Cup result with seventh place in the Hahnenkamm combination in Kitzbühel . He also won the Super-G in the European Cup in 1989/90. After two years with no points in the World Cup, Wirnsberger again achieved attractive results in January 1992 with 15th place in the downhill from Kitzbühel and 12th place in the combination of Wengen .
On November 25, 1992 Wirnsberger won the Austrian Super G championship in 1993 . On December 20 of the same year, following the Salzburg state championship in Altenmarkt-Zauchensee, he crashed into a wooden fence while skiing with his girlfriend and died a short time later from his serious injuries. His accidental death was seen as the continuation of a "series" of deaths in Austrian skiing that began with Sepp Walcher's death in 1984; see also Ulrike Maier .
↑ See Arbeiter-Zeitung of December 23, 1988, p. 29 and Ski-db.com . In the FIS database this eighth place is assigned to his namesake Peter Wirnsberger, but correctly counted for Peter Wirnsberger II in the World Cup rankings.
Austria
