It happened 50 years ago, and I still vividly remember the event. March 23, 1975 will forever remain a historic event in my mind, like it will for Italian skiing as a whole. That day, I witnessed the most exciting finale in the history of the World Cup.
Klammer, a downhiller, not a technical skier paired with Helmuth Schmalzl, went out immediately in the opening heat, while Thöni climbed quickly into a controversial quarter final against Poland’s Andrej Bachleda. Likewise, his Swedish opponent reached the semifinal against Fausto Radici and won it, while Thöni beat Switzerland’s Walter Tresch to arrive head to head with Stenmark for a super-charged intense final run of two legends.
The Italians fans were not nice to the Swede as they pelted him with snowballs as he was riding the surface lift up to the start. In the last gates of the final run, Stenmark trying to recover after slipping away into the last two gates lost his momentum, while Thoeni crossed the finish line victorious while Stenmark stood frozen and incredulous on the edge of the run.
“Ingo” as Italians nicknamed the Swede, would win the next three crystal globes and win the most World Cups until Shifrin beat his record, effectively putting an end to the domination of the “Valanga Azzurra” (the Italian avalanche) led by Mario Cotelli. For my part, not only was Thöni, the overall World Cup champion on Look bindings, but so was his Austrian female counterpart, Annemarie Moser Pröll!
With all these festive feelings and an everlasting memory inside my head I drove home thinking I had witnessed an incredible moment in ski history and some bittersweet feelings as this would be a premonition marking the beginning of the end of my job as racing director…
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