Sepp Bildstein

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Sepp Bildstein Ski jumping
Full name Josef Bildstein
nation AustriaAustria Austria
birthday February 12, 1891
place of birth Bregenz ,  Austria-HungaryAustria-HungaryAustria-Hungary 
date of death May 14, 1970
Place of death Schruns ,  AustriaAustriaAustria 
Career
Pers. Best 56 m
 

Josef "Sepp" Bildstein (born February 12, 1891 in Bregenz ; † May 14, 1970 in Schruns ) was an Austrian ski pioneer. He was a successful ski jumper and Nordic combined athlete , developed the first safety binding and is considered a pioneer in lift construction .

Career

Sepp Bildstein started skiing at an early age as a student of the Bregenz ski pioneer Viktor Sohm and in 1906, together with his brother Albert, played a key role in founding the Bregenz ski club "Ippa-Hoh". At the age of 15 he also joined a rowing club and was a helmsman in several regattas. He was later also active as a mountaineer . After graduating from high school in 1910, Bildstein first studied at the Technical University of Graz and later in Vienna. He graduated with a degree in engineering and received the gold engineering diploma in 1967. During his studies in Graz, he was often a guest on the then largest ski jumping hill in Austria in Bad Aussee and devoted himself more intensively to ski jumping . On February 20, 1911, he set a new Central European record for distance on this hill with a jump of 41 meters and exceeded the distances normally jumped there by ten meters. The now historical ski jump in Bad Aussee was later named Bildstein-Bakken after him . After this performance, he was the first Austrian to be sent to ski jumping at Holmenkollen in Oslo in the same year , but did not achieve a top ranking there. After Bildstein had been Vorarlberg and Tyrolean national champion in previous years , he won the Austrian championship in the "compound run", the Nordic combination of cross-country skiing and ski jumping, for the first time in 1913 , and in 1914 he was also the Austrian Academic Champion. In the same year he improved the Austrian distance record on Semmering to 43 meters. In the winter of 1913/14 he held a ski jumping course in Bad Aussee. After a forced break during the First World War , Sepp Bildstein again took part in competitions in the 1920s. In 1921 he was Austrian master in the compound run and academic master of Austria for the second time. He improved the Austrian ski jumping record several times, first to 44 in Semmering in 1923 and shortly afterwards to 47 meters and in 1924 in Bad Hofgastein to 50 meters. He achieved his personal best in 1926 in Pontresina with a jump of 56 meters.

After a broken leg that Bildstein suffered while jumping in Graz, he developed the first safety binding, which was patented in 1925 as the Bildstein spring tensioner binding . After his active career, he moved to Germany in the late 1920s and worked at Daimler-Benz . He is said to have played a key role in the design of the BMW 315/1 . At the Austrian aircraft factory Oeffag in Wiener Neustadt , he was temporarily employed as an aircraft manufacturer and at the Steyr works as an automobile designer . In 1947 he finally returned to Vorarlberg.

He remained closely connected to skiing through the construction of several lifts . 1937 he designed and built with Emil Doppelmayr from 1892 founded company Doppelmayr the first surface lift in Zürs am Arlberg . Later, as managing director of the operating company, he was responsible for the construction of over 15 lifts in the greater Lech / Zürs area. Part of these facilities forms the White Ring , a 22-kilometer ski circuit in the Lech / Zürs ski area, which Bildstein is considered to be the initiator. In 1962, Federal President Adolf Schärf awarded him the professional title of Technical Councilor . His daughter, Adelheid Schneider-Bildstein and his grandson, Michael Manhart, continue to run the company he founded on the Arlberg to this day.

literature

Movie

History of technology from the southwest , episode: The SWR ski lift .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c visionary, technician and skier in Vorarlberger Nachrichten of January 2, 2019, p. A8.
  2. ^ Austrian Ski Association (Ed.): 100 Years of the Austrian Ski Association . Innsbruck 2005, p. 53
  3. ^ Austrian Ski Association (Ed.): 100 Years of the Austrian Ski Association . Innsbruck 2005, p. 57
  4. ↑ Erich Bazalka: Ski history of Lower Austria . Written on behalf of the Lower Austria State Ski Association, Waidhofen / Ybbs 1977, p. 46
personal data
SURNAME Bildstein, Sepp
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bildstein, Josef
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian ski pioneer
DATE OF BIRTH February 12, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Bregenz , Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH May 14, 1970
Place of death Schruns , Austria