Toni Seelos

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Toni Seelos Alpine skiing
Full name Anton Seelos
nation AustriaAustria Austria
birthday March 4, 1911
place of birth Seefeld in Tirol , Austria
date of death June 1, 2006
Place of death Seefeld in Tyrol
Career
discipline Slalom, downhill, combination
society SC Seefeld
End of career 1947
Medal table
World championships 4 × gold 1 × silver 0 × bronze
FIS Alpine World Ski Championships
silver Murren 1931 slalom
gold Innsbruck 1933 slalom
gold Innsbruck 1933 combination
gold Murren 1935 slalom
gold Murren 1935 combination
 

Anton "Toni" Seelos (born March 4, 1911 in Seefeld in Tirol ; † June 1, 2006 there ) was an Austrian ski racer and ski trainer. Seelos was four times world ski champion. In the 1930s he was one of the most influential pioneers in alpine skiing. He fundamentally changed the slalom by replacing the traditional stem turn with the parallel turn. His brother Johann was also a ski racer.

Career

After success at junior level, Seelos achieved their first major victories in the winter of 1930. He won the slalom in the Seegrube , a descent in Matrei and also the slalom at the Bavarian Championships in Garmisch-Partenkirchen . At the Arlberg-Kandahar races , he achieved second place in the combination.

In 1931, Seelos took part in the first Alpine World Ski Championships in Mürren and won the silver medal in the slalom behind Swiss David Zogg . He also took 15th place in the downhill and sixth place in the unofficial “Long Downhill”. The aforementioned silver medal was initially considered "unofficial" because the slalom had only been driven in one round due to the thaw. It was not until 2013, almost seven years after the death of Seelos, that the FIS confirmed the slalom classification and thus the medals from 1931 as official.
A year later he just missed the medal ranks at the World Championships in Cortina d'Ampezzo , finishing fourth in slalom, fifth in combined and sixth in downhill. A little later he won all competitions at the Bavarian Championships in Garmisch. The final breakthrough to the top of the world was achieved by Seelos at his “home World Cup” in 1933 in Innsbruck . For the time being, on February 6th, it was a special downhill race on a 10 km long route, from the saddle between Glungezer and Sonnenspitze down to Tulfes. Here he was sixth (victory Hans Hauser ); this competition was later only recorded as "out of competition" in skiing history (source: book "Sieg auf Weiße Pisten" by Hermann Nussbaumer).
In the races that actually belong to the world championship, he finished 10th in the downhill on February 8th, but the next day he won the gold medals in slalom and in the combination with the best times in both rounds ahead of his team mate Gustav Lantschner . He confirmed these achievements shortly afterwards when he won the slalom, the downhill and the combined at the German championships - for which no championship titles were awarded at the time.

Due to the February fights in 1934 , the Austrian Ski Association did not send a team to the World Championships in St. Moritz, so Seelos, like all other Austrians, could not take part in the competitions. But he was present as a supervisor of the German team and started in the slalom as a forerunner, where he promptly set the fastest time. In the winter of 1935 the Tyrolean won the slalom and the combination at the races for the Golden Ring in Seefeld and he took part in the 1935 World Championships in Mürren. There he was able to repeat his successes from two years ago, was slalom world champion for the second time (exactly 5 seconds ahead of David Zogg !) And with a safely laid out descent also combined world champion for the second time. He continued to look after the German team.

Exclusion from the Olympics

In the winter of 1936, Seelos won the slaloms in Kitzbühel and Seefeld. In the run-up to the 1936 Winter Olympics , he was again working as a supervisor for the German team. Due to the strict amateur rules, as a ski instructor (like almost all other men from the Austrian and Swiss federations) he was unable to take part in the games himself. So he started in the slalom only as a forerunner and was significantly faster than the Olympic champion Franz Pfnür . At the World Championships in Innsbruck, which took place a short time later , he did not take part, but was again a forerunner in the slalom and set the fastest time again. He justified his step with the fact that he was physically not as strong as he should have been in the fight against the world elite. He had had to work hard as a ski instructor all winter to support his family. Therefore, he lacked the necessary training. "While abroad everything was about skiers and their achievements, while the state usually intervened to help, Austria's best runner had to forego the world championship because otherwise he would have endangered the existence of his family." (Quote from the book "Victory on White Pists" by Hermann Nussbaumer).
In 1937 he became a successful coach of the French national ski team. In the 1937/38 season, Seelos won the slalom and the combination in the races for the Golden Ring , the slalom in the silver ball races and the downhill on the Glungezer . At the World Championships in Engelberg in 1938 , he only finished 15th in the downhill, in the slalom he gave up after a goal error.

Post-war years, end of career

After the war , Seelos was still an active racer himself and in 1946 came second in the Hahnenkamm combination with third places in downhill and slalom . He achieved further podium places at the races in Seefeld. In 1947 he still got some good results. He was then a successful coach at the ÖSV until 1956 (but he also trained the Swedes and Germans around 1951/52), but was not available to the Austrian association at the 1952 Olympic Games. He officially apologized by saying that his wife was expecting a child and that he would like to be with her, but there were suspected disagreements between him and the association or Fred Rößner . He won a "Legendenabfahrt" as part of the Kandahar race in St. Anton am Arlberg on March 13, 1953, ahead of Hellmut Lantschner .
Until 1981, Seelos ran the ski school in his home town of Seefeld. The Olympic ski jump there is named after him. Toni Seelos died on June 1st, 2006 at the age of 95 in Seefeld.

Sporting successes

World championships

Awards (excerpt)

literature

  • Oliver Bachmann, Sepp Kneisl: Toni Seelos. A life for skiing. Haymon-Verlag, Innsbruck 1999, ISBN 3-85218-316-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Nick Howe: The Blitz From Kitz , Skiing Heritage 1/1997, p. 17 (English).
  2. ↑ "Seelos: I do not impose myself" . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna December 8, 1951, p. 8 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  3. ^ "Without Toni Seelos to Oslo" . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna February 7, 1952, p. 8 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  4. ^ "Surprise at the Kandahar race"; last paragraph after the results . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna March 14, 1953, p. 8 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  5. ↑ List of all decorations awarded by the Federal President for services to the Republic of Austria from 1952 (PDF; 6.9 MB)
personal data
SURNAME Seelos, Toni
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Seelos, Anton (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian ski racer and ski trainer
DATE OF BIRTH March 4, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Seefeld in Tirol , Austria
DATE OF DEATH June 1, 2006
Place of death Seefeld in Tirol , Austria