The Winter Olympics in German
Rennrodeln and other German-dominated events
The Winter Games in Turin (Torino) 2006 and
Die Winterspiele im Utah Olympic Park am Salzsee
Although this article was originally written for the Salt Lake Winter Games in 2002, it contains sports vocabulary and links that also relate to the 2006 Torino Winter Olympics in Italy.
When President George W. Bush officially opened die Olympischen Winterspiele at the Utah Olympic Park near the Great Salt Lake on February 8, 2002, the "S-word" - security/Sicherheit - was uppermost in everyone's minds. But millions of Austrians and Germans were thinking about the "G-word" - Gold. They are closely following athletes you may never have heard of, but who offered hope for German gold medals from the 27th Olympic Winter Games. The two German public TV networks, ARD and ZDF, provided 300 hours of Salt Lake coverage for Olympic fans, much of it live during prime time in Germany. („ARD und ZDF sind mit 500 Mitarbeitern und 36 Kameras vor Ort und senden 300 Stunden live, plus Radio im Internet.“) Ironically, most of us here in the USA saw very little live Olympics coverage, with NBC preferring to do prime-time tape-delayed broadcasts. - See our Links page for more about German TV and Web coverage.
Wissen Sie was?
Sport-Quiz 1 und Sport-Quiz 2
Eisschnelllauf / Speed Skating
Take our Pictogram Sports Quiz
Pictogram © 1997 SLOC
The Germans, Austrians and Italians have long been dominant in Alpine winter sports, but one event in particular has a strong Germanic connection: Rennrodeln, or luge. German luge champ Georg Hackl (pron. GAY-org HAH-kel) was hoping to set a new Olympic record in Utah. He had the chance to be the first winter games athlete ever to win four consecutive gold medals in the same individual event. (Only three summer athletes have ever won four in a row.) Since it became an Olympic sport in 1964, all but one of the 30 gold medals for luge have gone to German-speaking athletes. Unfortunately, he had to settle for silver when the Italian Armin Roeggeler beat him for the gold by two-tenths of a second. Still, Hackl did succeeed in being the first athlete to win five medals in a row in a single event - from silver in Calgary (1988) to silver in Salt Lake 2002, with gold in between.
Hackl is a native of Berchtesgaden, Germany—which also just happens to be the location of the main administrative offices (Geschäftsstelle) of the Fédération Internationale de Luge de Course, aka Internationaler Rennrodelverband or International Luge Federation. He was born in Berchtesgaden in 1966 and still calls the Bavarian town his home when he isn't off somewhere competing. Hackl's first gold win came in Albertville, France during the 1992 Winter Games. He followed that with two more gold medals in Lillehammer (1994) and Nagano (1998). NBC ran a story about Hackl on Monday, Feb. 11, but sportscaster Bob Costa had difficulty pronouncing "Georg" correctly.
Another Bavarian athlete whose highest hopes were dashed in Salt Lake was the 24-year-old Kufenstar Anni Friesinger (FREE-zinger). The German speed-skating champion comes from a family of skaters. Friesinger, whom German publications often refer to as “das blonde Glamourgirl,” lives in Inzell, a small town in the Bavarian Alps not far from Berchtesgaden and Salzburg. The Eisschnellläuferin recently won second place as the German Sportlerin des Jahres (athlete of the year). She started skating at the age of three and made her Olympic debut in Nagano in 1998, winning a bronze medal in the 3000-meter event. Freisinger's parents were also Olympic skaters in the 1970s, and her younger sister and brother also compete. She and teammate Claudia Pechstein were hoping for a repeat of the German medal sweep in the 3000 race in Nagano, but Friesinger was knocked out of the medal race in Utah by a Canadian skater. Pechstein took the gold in speed-skating. - Find more Olympic results and news using our Olympic Links page.
Also see our Sports Glossary and Sport-Quiz pages.
OTHER OLYMPIC GAMES
Olympic Links for German
Torino 2006, Athens 2004, and other Olympic links in German and English.
Sydney 2000: The Olympics in German
An earlier Olympic article from your Guide.
NEXT > Sports Glossary 1 | Glossary | Sportarten | Links
QUIZ > Sport-Quiz 1 | Sport-Quiz 2
German Newsletters
Subscribe to a free newsletter!
OUR GERMAN FORUMS