Josef Walcher

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Josef Walcher Alpine skiing
Sepp Walcher 1977 in Val-d'Isère
Sepp Walcher 1977 in Val-d'Isère
nation AustriaAustria Austria
birthday December 8, 1954
place of birth Schladming , Austria
size 178 cm
Weight 77 kg
date of death January 22, 1984
Place of death Schladming
Career
discipline Departure
society WSV Schladming
End of career 1982
Medal table
World championships 1 × gold 0 × silver 0 × bronze
FIS Alpine World Ski Championships
gold Garmisch-Partenk. 1978 Departure
Placements in the Alpine Ski World Cup
 Individual World Cup debut December 10, 1972
 Individual world cup victories 5
 Overall World Cup 7th ( 1977/78 )
 Downhill World Cup 2. ( 1976/77 , 1977/78)
 Podium placements 1. 2. 3.
 Departure 5 4th 4th
 
Walcher on the Lauberhorn run in 1978
Monument to Sepp Walcher in Schladming

Josef "Sepp" Walcher (born December 8, 1954 in Schladming ; † January 22, 1984 ibid) was an Austrian ski racer . The downhill specialist won five world cup races and was three times Austrian champion . He achieved his greatest success in 1978 when he won the world title in downhill.

biography

Walcher started skiing at an early age, at the age of eight he was accepted into the Schladming winter sports club . His career was repeatedly interrupted by injuries, for the first time in 1969 when he had to pause for several months after a broken leg.

In 1972 the Styrian became Austrian downhill champion for the first time and then joined the ÖSV World Cup team . His first World Cup race was the descent from Val-d'Isère on December 10, 1972, which he finished in twelfth place. On February 11, 1973, he scored his first World Cup points in St. Moritz , when he surprisingly finished second behind Werner Grissmann . In Lienz he was Austrian national champion in the downhill for the second time. In December 1973, Walcher finished third in Zell am See , but otherwise only achieved World Cup points once and was unable to qualify for the World Championship in St. Moritz within the strong Austrian downhill team. On January 5, 1975, Walcher made it onto the podium for the third time in Garmisch-Partenkirchen , but a few days later he had a bad fall in downhill training on the Lauberhorn in Wengen and had to end the season. In the winter of 1975/76 he made it into the Olympic team with third place in Kitzbühel and finished ninth at the winter games in Innsbruck .

In the 1976/77 season , Walcher celebrated his first World Cup victories in the descents of Morzine and Heavenly Valley and came in second twice. He was second behind the superior Franz Klammer in the Downhill World Cup and came eighth in the overall World Cup. The Styrian started the next winter with a third place in Val-d'Isère and in January he won both runs on the Streif in Kitzbühel (the second at the same time as the German Sepp Ferstl ). The then 23-year-old celebrated the greatest success of his career a week later at the 1978 World Cup in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. With seven hundredths of a second ahead of the German Michael Veith , Walcher was downhill world champion. In the overall World Cup, Walcher finished seventh this time, and in the Downhill World Cup, like last year, he finished second behind Klammer. The Schladminger won the downhill race for the third time at the Austrian Championships. Thanks to his World Cup success, he was voted Austria's Sportsman of the Year in 1978 .

On December 16, 1978, Walcher celebrated his fifth - and final - World Cup victory on the descent from Val Gardena . The next day he fell on the second descent on the Saslong , injured himself and did not achieve any top ten results for the rest of the winter. In the 1979/80 season , Walcher came second and fifth in the downhill runs from Wengen and thus secured a place in the downhill team for the 1980 Winter Olympics . But because Leonhard Stock, who originally only traveled to Lake Placid as a substitute driver , got a fixed starting place after good training performance (and also achieved first place in the downhill), Walcher had to qualify together with Werner Grissmann and Peter Wirnsberger , in which he won the two was defeated and therefore could not start the race.

In the 1980/81 season Walcher could no longer keep up with the absolute top of the world. A fifth place in St. Anton am Arlberg was his best result. The next winter he was only twice in the top ten and he also missed the world championship in his home town of Schladming. At the end of the season, Walcher announced his retirement.

Walcher married during his active career and had three children. After retiring, he ran a café , a ski hut and a guesthouse in Schladming . On January 22, 1984, Walcher had a fatal accident at the age of 29 in a charity ski race.

successes

winter Olympics

World championships

World cup

World Cup victories

Walcher won five downhill runs, was second four times, third four times and was among the top ten another 20 times.

date place country discipline
January 31, 1977 Morzine France Departure
March 12, 1977 Heavenly Valley United States Departure
January 20, 1978 Kitzbühel Austria Departure
January 21, 1978 Kitzbühel Austria Departure
December 16, 1978 Val Gardena Italy Departure

European Cup

Austrian championships

Awards

literature

Web links

Commons : Josef Walcher  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ City of Schladming: Memory of Downhill World Champion Sepp Walcher ( Memento from February 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Walcher, Josef
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Walcher, Sepp (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian ski racer
DATE OF BIRTH December 8, 1954
PLACE OF BIRTH Schladming
DATE OF DEATH January 22nd 1984
Place of death Schladming