5/21/2023 0 Comments Franz klammer 1976 olympics video![]() ![]() Switzerland's Bernhard Russi, the reigning Olympic champion, went down the 1.88 mile course at in a blur of red and a clarion of cowbells. The Canadians raced well at Patscherkofel, but not well enough. Jungle Jim wore a sort of camo-pattern ski suit and his nickname suggested a character from a Victor comic who might have schussed down a hillside in Burma to surprise the Japanese: "Looks like we've caught the enemy with his pants down!" "Aiieeeeee!" He had improved his balance by tucking himself inside the wheel rims of the family tractor as it rumbled around the fields. Jungle Jim had learned to ski despite coming from the plains of Saskatchewan, perfecting his aerodynamic stance by riding, in full ski gear, strapped to the roof of his dad's pickup truck. Ken Read was probably the best skier, but I had a particular fondness for Jungle Jim Hunter. There had been a big Canadian airbase near our village during the war. ![]() The Canadians were nicknamed "The Crazy Canucks" and had the sort of self-deprecating, plucky, it's-a-crazy-madcap-scheme-Ginger-but-it-just-might-work attitude the English could identify with. My patriotic allegiance was therefore switched to the Canadian team. Our best man, Konrad Bartelski was raised in that hotbed of mountain sports, Holland our top woman, Valentina Iliffe, came from snowy Australia. We had no ski jumpers, and our skiers were strictly non-League. The other two events were a write-off, though. After all, Robin Dixon and Tony Nash had taken the gold just 12 years before, and there'd been a silver as recently as 1924 (the year Belgium got the bronze). We were the generation rallycross was invented for.īritain had, we were constantly assured, "a great tradition in the bobsleigh". I was a normal 1970s boy – my attention was arrested by anything that involved speed, goggles and the prospect of crashes, preferably into hay bales. In truth I wasn't interested in much of the games, just the ski-jumping, the bobsleigh and the Alpine skiing.
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