Wheels instead of slats
02/04/2025
Today's start of the World Ski Championships in Saalbach reminds me of the time when former ski racers were suddenly also involved in motorsport. There was Phillippe Roux in the Cheetah sports car (Le Mans participation and CH championship in 1979), Paris-Dakar winner (2006 in a Mitsubishi) and Le Mans participant Luc Alphand and - almost forgotten as a car racer - the most successful of all: the Austrian Franz Klammer (71).
Franz became Olympic champion in the downhill in 1976 and is still the most successful athlete in this discipline today with his 25 downhill victories and five wins in the Downhill World Cup. On March 15, 1985 - almost exactly 40 years ago - he ended his active career on skis. But in the same year, he started his second career in Wunstorf, now in motorsport with an Alfetta GTV in the DPM and renamed the DTM in 1986.
In the team of today's Red Bull Motorsport boss Dr. Helmut Marko (81), he competed in a total of 49 races with team colleague Peter Oberndorfer, first with the Alfas and later with Mercedes-Benz. One pole position and one podium finish adorn his palmares before he announced his retirement in Hockenheim in 1988.
Klammer became Austrian Touring Car Champion and not only won the European Touring Car Championship at the Nürburgring, but also in Bathurst (Australia) - two races that can be compared to the "Streif", which he won four times.
After his "cheating" in motorsport, he returned to skiing and raced professionally in the USA until 1998, winning the "Tournament of Champions" twice and seven titles in downhill and parallel slalom. He then set up his own foundation, the "Klammer Foundation", which primarily helps young injured athletes (the reason for this was his brother's paraplegia, which he suffered in 1977).
Franz Klammer is married, has two daughters and lives in Vienna.
