Rune Kristiansen (born July 30, 1964 in Oslo ) is a former Norwegian freestyle skier . He specialized in the no longer performed discipline ballet (acro) . In this discipline he became world champion in 1995 and won two more world championship medals. With 38 World Cup victories and four wins in the discipline, he is one of the most successful athletes in ski ballet.
Rune Kristiansen comes from Oslo and started for Christiania FK.
Kristiansen contested his first competition in the Freestyle Skiing World Cup in Tignes in December 1984 and finished 19th. Already at the end of his first season, he was second in Sälen to achieve his first podium. A year later he took part in the first official Freestyle World Championships on Oberjoch , but had to be content with 36th place. In the following years he improved continuously until he celebrated his first two victories in December 1987 in Tignes and La Plagne . As part of the Olympic Games in Calgary , he won the bronze medal, was first staged as a ballet as a demonstration event.
Kristiansen finished the World Cup winters 1987/88 and 1988/89 in third place in the discipline ranking, in 1989/90 he only had to admit defeat to Roberto Franco . In the 1990/91 season he won seven out of 14 ballet world cups and thus for the first time superior to the discipline ranking. At the World Championships in Lake Placid , however, he could not live up to his role as favorites and finished in a disappointing tenth place. In the following two winters he also prevailed in the World Cup rankings, winning the silver medal as a top favorite at the Olympic demonstration competition in Albertville and at the World Championships in Zauchensee . After falling back to third place in 1993/94, he succeeded again in the following season, celebrating six wins in a row and achieving the long-awaited world championship title in La Clusaz .
After the 1995/96 season, in which he got his last four wins, Rune Kristiansen ended his active career.
Norway
