Rudolf Burkert

Rudolf Burkert ( born October 31, 1904 in Polaun, † June 7, 1985 in Germany ) was a German Bohemian skiers who was successful in the Nordic combined and ski jumping for Czechoslovakia.

Career

Burkert won the world title in the Nordic combined at the 1927 Nordic World Ski Championships in Cortina d' Ampezzo. However, this was due to the fact that neither Norway nor Finland seconded athletes. A year later at the 1928 Olympics in St. Moritz, which were considered at the same time Nordic World Ski Championships, he won the bronze medal in ski jumping and Nordic combined reached rank 12 He was the first Czech who won a medal at the Winter Olympics. Five years later, he still won one silver medal in ski jumping at the Nordic World Ski Championships 1933 in Innsbruck. In 1934, he had to end his career because of a foot injury. This injury kept him from military use in World War II. After the war he was not expelled, despite its origin as a Sudeten German from his home and lived from 1945 in Tanvald. In 1968 he emigrated officially to Germany, where he died in 1985.