Toni Spiss

Toni Spiss ( born April 8, 1930 in Sankt Anton am Arlberg, † March 20, 1993 ) was an Austrian alpine skier. He won the bronze medal in the giant slalom at the Olympic Winter Games in 1952 and in the slalom at the 1954 World Cup, in 1952 Austrian Champion in the Alpine combined and won numerous international races.

Career

The first outstanding international result of the launching of the Ski Club Arlberg Austrian was a fifth place in 1951 at the Arlberg - Kandahar race. End of January 1952 Spiss took part in the Austrian Championships on Semmering, where he won two bronze medals in the downhill and giant slalom and second in the slalom was. In the Alpine combination he won thanks to the constancy in the three competitions even the title. A month later came the Austrians for the first and only time at the Olympic Winter Games, held in Oslo in 1952, at the start, where he participated in the giant slalom and slalom. While he was eliminated in the slalom, he won the bronze medal behind Stein Eriksen and Pravda in the giant slalom 3.8 seconds. Here, an American industrialist, the 21 -year-old impressed so much that this Spiss adopted in the wake of the Olympic Games, and I brought him as head of a ski school in Vermont.

The Olympic bronze medal, which counted as a world championship medal, though remained Spiss ' greatest success, however, it was followed by another. In 1954 he won the slalom bronze medal at the World Ski Championships in Åre, Sweden. In 1955 he placed also at that time when the traditional Hahnenkamm Slalom races in second place behind Molterer, after he had previously won in the same competition in the giant slalom.

Together with his teammates from the junior level, Othmar Schneider and Christian Pravda, Spiss introduced a new international and successful technique in which the upper body remains largely quiet; this was called counter-shoulder technique.

Sporting successes

Olympic Winter Games

  • Oslo 1952: 3 Giant Slalom

World Championships

  • Oslo 1952: 3 Giant Slalom
  • Åre 1954: 3 Slalom, Giant Slalom 9

Austrian Championships

  • Austrian Champion in the combined 1952
Slalom skiing Alpine skiing combined Winter Olympic Games Alpine skiing at the 1952 Winter Olympics FIS Alpine World Ski Championships 1954 1952 Winter Olympics
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