Hahnenkamm: How Sepp Blatter almost brought a ski hero to the Streif victory

Of course he is on his way to Kitzbühel when the call reaches him. By car on the way from Sankt Anton, where he owns a hotel, direction Hahnenkamm, where they fall down the mountain again on Saturday. "I'm the guest of honor this year," says Karl Schranz, 80 years old, ski legend, probably one of the most famous people in Austria. When he was expelled from the Olympic Winter Games in Sapporo in 1972 for allegedly violating the amateur paragraph, 100,000 outraged people poured into Vienna's Heroes' Square to protest.

"Heuer guest of honor" is a pretty understatement, Schranz has been the guest of honor of the Hahnenkamm race on the Streif every year for decades, after all he has won it four times. Like so many others. But this one win on the Streif 50 years ago has a special place in his memory.

It was the 18th of January 1969, the 30-year-old Schranz was at the peak of his popularity, actually no other winner of the downhill in Kitzbühel in question. Schranz hunted over the runway, compression, mousetrap, carousel, larch shot, Hausbergkante. All times showed best values ​​for him. But when he arrived down the finish line, he should have lost several seconds on the final home mountain, says the hand time measurement. He was only second behind the Swiss Jean-Daniel Dätwyler. Daetwyler cheered, his appendix handed him a champagne flute, it was the biggest moment of his career. Schranz, on the other hand, felt betrayed. Once again.

"I was sick of everything"

"Not again," he thought, 50 years later he told SPIEGEL. A year earlier, he had already cheered on the gold at the Winter Olympics in Grenoble in the slalom, then he was disqualified, the longed-for medal went to his fiercest rival Jean-Claude Killy. "When I reached the finish in Kitzbühel, and it was said that I was only second, I was sick of everything."

Schranz stomped pissed off the runway to the hotel, but at the finish they had noticed the mistake meanwhile. So the timekeeper boss, a young guy, ran after Schranz to get him back. This man, who at that time was responsible for the mistake, was a young Swiss - and his name was Joseph Blatter. The later FIFA boss. At that time a representative of the Swiss watch company, which was responsible for the timekeeping.

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"So Sepp ran after me and always shouted:" Karl, please, stop! "But I did not want to," says Schranz. One may imagine the beautiful picture, as the later Fifa president Blatter runs with probably waving coat behind the disgruntled ski star. "He followed me all the way to the hotel." When he had reached him, Blatter Schranz wanted to deliver the good news of the victory "and then gave me a watch as compensation". The method of appeasing people with presents had already been learned by Blatter. "But I told him he could put it in his hat." Only slowly had Schranz calmed down again, then he was persuaded to return to the award ceremony.

Dätwyler had it "as a fair sportsman" accepted that the alleged victory was taken away, says Schranz. However, the Swiss has been battling with this day for years, never again has he come so close to winning in Kitzbühel.

The victory run came to the cinema

Schranz 'Sieglauf from 1969 not only made it into the anecdot collection of the Stiff, he even went to the movies. Hollywood shot the movie "Shot Ride" with Robert Redford that winter. For weeks, the film crew drifted around on the big slopes, "they shot everywhere, at the Lauberhorn in Wengen and of course in Kitzbühel". He has met Redford several times this winter, a clash of two superstars. Who was the bigger one? "In skiing I'm sure, but only there," says Schranz.

The film he later looked at together with Hollywood star Natalie Wood, "who was already turned very American, because it was all about victories and losing".

About the episode with the wrong time measurement, he later spoke to Sepp more often, and we laughed about it. After all, Blatter and Schranz have in common not only that afternoon on the Streif, but also their cordial relationship with Vladimir Putin. Schranz was one of the lobbyists who stood up for hosting the Winter Games in Sochi. That brought him Putin's friendship, but also a lot of criticism.

Dear Schranz talks about how much the skiing has changed and yet remained the same. "Although they are faster today, but we had the material significantly worse." And the departure from his point of view has not become more dangerous. "Today they all have their nets, at the time we only had a few bales of straw at the track, and they were mostly icy." Above all, today is the time measurement reliable.