Europe 1 with AFP 6:36 p.m., January 5, 2023
Former German skier Rosi Mittermaier, two-time Olympic champion in 1976, has died at the age of 72, her family said Thursday.
The one who was nicknamed "Gold Rosi" (literally, Rosi in gold) "went to sleep peacefully surrounded by her family" on Wednesday after a serious illness, her family said.
The double Olympic champion in 1976 (Austria) Rosi Mittermaier died at the age of 72 "from a serious illness", announced the family of the German champion on Thursday.
Born in Munich, Mittermaier grew up near the Austrian border in the Bavarian Alps, where her father ran a ski school.
She began her international career at the age of 16 in 1967, but her greatest successes came a decade later, when she won the Olympic titles in the downhill and slalom at the 1976 Olympics in Innsbruck.
From Austria, she also brought home a silver medal (giant slalom).
The same year, she won the general classification of the World Cup, before retiring at the end of the season at only 25 years old.
>> READ ALSO
- World Ski Championships: the weather affects the slopes in Courchevel, but "nothing catastrophic"
Singing career
Mittermaier then tried her hand at a singing career, recording two albums of Bavarian folk songs with her younger sister Evi.
From her marriage to Christian Neureuther, also a member of the German alpine ski team which took part in the 1976 Olympics, two children were born, including Felix, 2013 world vice-champion in slalom and winner thirteen times in the world circuit.
When he was inducted into the German Sports Hall of Fame in 2006, the Deutsche Sporthilfe Foundation said his induction was not just due to his skiing prowess, but "rather (due to) the charisma of his personality and his life after his career, which is characterized by social commitment".
Despite her early retirement, Mittermaier continued to ski non-competitively, saying "skiing is the best thing ever": "it's where my heart will always rise," she said.