Ferdinand Hirzegger
Ferdinand Hirzegger ( born June 2, 1976 in Rottenmann ) is a former Austrian natural track luge. He started in single-seaters, in 2001 Vice World Champion and won in the 1999/2000 season the World Cup. In all, he won five World Cup races.
Career
Hirzegger began as a five- year-old with the natural track luge. He scored the first international success at the Junior European Championships in 1996 in Szczyrk, when he won the bronze medal in the single-seater. After several injuries early in his career he found the end of the 1990s, following the world's best. In the 1997/1998 season he scored equal points with compatriot Robert Tomelitsch sixth place in the overall World Cup and a year later he became a total of eight. At the European Championships in 1999 Szczyrk he also drove in eighth.
The real breakthrough came in the then 23 -year-old Styrian in the season 1999/2000. Hirzegger won four of six World Cup races and took two fourth places, with which he overall World Cup winner was ahead of his teammate Gerhard Pilz and the Italians Anton Blasbichler. Subsequently, he was awarded the Golden Medal for Services to the Republic of Austria. The worst result of the season he scored just at the World Championship 2000 in Olang. Here he only came in sixth place. The 2000/2001 season began Hirzegger with two third and a second place, with which he traveled all as World Cup leader and favorite for the World Cup in 2001 at his home track in Stein an der Enns. Hirzegger was after two of three championship rounds, six tenths of seconds in the lead, but under braking the third passage and was overtaken by Anton Blasbichler by 19 hundredths of a second. Hirzegger won silver. In the inaugural team event he was part of the team I also Austria at the start. The team came not from a failure of the two-seater Beer / Kögl in the standings. The last two World Cup races of the winter ( had the fourth race of the season due to weather conditions will be canceled ) finished sixth and seventh Hirzegger only on position, so he fell back in the World Cup after his half-time lead in third place.
After a fourth place at the start of the World Cup season 2001/2002 was Hirzegger three times in a row on the podium and celebrated in the parallel competition of Triesenberg his fifth and final World Cup victory. With two sixth places end of the season he reached behind Gerhard Pilz, who celebrated three victories this season, ranking second in the overall World Cup. At the 2002 European Championships in Frantschach - Sankt Gertraud he finished seventh. In his last season 2002/2003 Hirzegger reached the fifth World Cup race in Kindberg as third his last podium place. At the end, he finished sixth in the overall standings. In the 2003 World Cup in Železniki Hirzegger was, who had to wear a special splint for a broken thumb, twelfth.
After his playing career Hirzegger began his career as a coach, among other things from 2005 for the Austrian women's team and since 2009 as a personal trainer by Gernot Schwab.
Sporting successes
World Championships
- Rautavaara 1998: 15 seater
- Olang 2000: 6 seater
- Stein an der Enns 2001: 2 seater
- Železniki 2003: 12 seater
European Championships
- Szczyrk 1999: 8 seater
- Frantschach 2002: 7 seater
European Junior Championships
- Saint-Marcel/Fénis 1995: 10 seater
- Szczyrk 1996: 3 seater, 11 doubles ( with Gernot Schwab )
World Cup
- Overall World Cup victory in the single-seater in the season 1999/2000
- 2nd place in the single-seat World Cup in the 2001/2002 season
- 3rd place in the single-seat World Cup in the 2000/2001 season
- 5 wins in World Cup races:
Austrian Championships
- Austrian champion in single-seaters in 2001
Awards
- 2000: Gold Decoration for Services to the Republic of Austria