Franz Kapus

Franz Kapus ( born April 12, 1909 in Zurich, † March 4, 1981 ) was a Swiss bob pilot. He belonged in the 1950s to the world's best bobsledders and was once each Olympic champion and world champion.

Kapus was a versatile athlete who took part in competitions in gymnastics, swimming, swinging and amateur boxing. At its most successful sport, the bobsled, he joined relatively late in the late 1940s. At the World Championships in 1950 in Cortina d' Ampezzo and 1951 in L' Alpe d' Huez he won the bronze medal in the four-man. In St. Moritz, he won at the World Championships in 1955 in the four-man, as he finished third in the two-man bob. His biggest success was winning the four-man bobsleigh gold medal at the Olympic Winter Games in Cortina.

From professional Kapus was a mechanic, what zugutekam him in the development of bobsled. He let his constructions of physicists and aerodynamics extensively test and put their proposals accordingly. Kapus was also the world's first bob pilot who does not let himself when starting push by his companions, but even with anschob. For the dry training, he led a self-built Rollbob an on rails. In the early 1970s he worked for the Japanese Association as a consultant in the construction of the Olympic bobsled track in Sapporo.

Source

  • World Sports Archive ( Munzinger archive ), 1981
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