Anton Sailer biography
Anton Sailer, byname Toni Sailer, (born Nov. 17, 1935, Kitzbühel, Austria—died Aug. 24, 2009, Innsbruck), Austrian Alpine skier who, within the 1956 Olympic Winter Games held in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, was the primary to comb the gold medals within the Alpine competitors, which at the moment consisted of the slalom, big slalom, and downhill occasions. His gold-medal feat has been matched solely by French skier Jean-Claude Killy.
Sailer, a 20-year-old plumber, was the youngest skier ever to win a gold medal in males’s Olympic Alpine snowboarding. At the 1956 Games, Sailer first received the enormous slalom by greater than six seconds after which the slalom by 4 seconds. Only the downhill occasion remained. On the day of the competitors the climate was brutal and the course treacherous; greater than a 3rd of the starters have been unable to finish the race owing to gusty winds and an icy course, and eight required medical consideration. Sailer himself narrowly recovered from a close to fall and got here in three and a half seconds forward of Switzerland’s Raymond Fellay to say the gold medal sweep. Sailer’s followers started to seek advice from him because the “Blitz from Kitz,” enjoying on the title of his hometown of Kitzbühel. Winning the gold medals additionally meant that Sailer obtained three world championship titles and in addition a world champion classification for the mixed occasion. By the top of the 1958 season, he had received a formidable seven world titles.
In 1959 Sailer introduced his retirement from beginner competitors and stated that he wouldn't be taking part within the 1960 Olympic Winter Games. Since 1957 he had labored as a film actor and now felt that his movie profession left him little time to coach for the Olympics. Sailer’s retirement got here simply days earlier than the International Ski Federation was to rule on his disputed beginner standing owing to his work as an actor and a mannequin. He later rejoined the Austrian Alpine ski group as supervisor within the early Seventies.