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Clocks

Posted By: Bill Riles
Date: Monday, 7 December 2009, at 8:28 p.m.

In Response To: Clocks (Chuck Bower)

For those youngsters, a brief synopsis:

(I'll do this from memory w/o looking up facts so if there is a minor error I apologize.)

The 1976 Winter Olympics were in Innsbruck, Austria and Franz Klammer was the Austrian ski hero and favorite in the downhill.

The slopes were packed with thousands of fans from top to bottom, going crazy. Klammer was the last skier of the day -- I don't recall whether that was because he was top-ranked, luck of the draw, or led after a first round and they skied in reverse order of rank (which I think was the case). Nevertheless, skiing last Klammer knew what time he had to beat and it was low as some other guy had posted a time far better than anyone else. But skiing late in the day the course was covered in shadows and the course was chewed up and crusty by everyone else having already skied.

Klammer went all out from the top. He was hell-bent to win or die trying. He was seemingly at times totally out of control. Off balance, flailing wildly in the air trying to maintain position, often on one ski, he pushed the edge of the envelope all the way down.

And he won !!

If you never seen it you should watch it. It is easily found on YouTube. The original television coverage was priceless -- it was probably Jim McKay calling the action and he was frantically amazed. As I recall, you could hear the crowd noise and reactions throughout the run. In my opinion it is one of the greatest televised moments in Olympic history, if not all sports history.

The only thing close in my memory of Olympic skiing events was the 1984 Sarajevo guarantee of a downhill victory by the American Bill Johnson, "Billy Downhill". And he did it.

Messages In This Thread

• Clocks
  Bill Riles -- Monday, 7 December 2009, at 5:04 p.m.
  • Clocks
    Chiva Tafazzoli -- Monday, 7 December 2009, at 5:13 p.m.
    • Clocks
      Matt Cohn-Geier -- Monday, 7 December 2009, at 6:32 p.m.
    • Clocks
      neilkaz -- Tuesday, 8 December 2009, at 4:44 a.m.
  • Clocks
    Bill Riles -- Monday, 7 December 2009, at 7:03 p.m.
    • Clocks
      Jason Lee -- Monday, 7 December 2009, at 7:50 p.m.
      • Clocks (cocked dice)
        jdg -- Tuesday, 8 December 2009, at 3:11 p.m.
    • Clocks
      neilkaz -- Tuesday, 8 December 2009, at 4:32 a.m.
  • Clocks
    Chuck Bower -- Monday, 7 December 2009, at 8:11 p.m.
    • Clocks
      Bill Riles -- Monday, 7 December 2009, at 8:28 p.m.
  • Clocks
    neilkaz -- Tuesday, 8 December 2009, at 4:42 a.m.
    • Clocks
      Jason Lee -- Tuesday, 8 December 2009, at 5:06 a.m.
      • Clocks
        neilkaz -- Tuesday, 8 December 2009, at 5:16 a.m.
    • Clocks/ match lengths
      Coolrey -- Tuesday, 8 December 2009, at 1:15 p.m.
      • Clocks/ match lengths
        neilkaz -- Tuesday, 8 December 2009, at 5:52 p.m.
        • Clocks/ match lengths
          mfic -- Thursday, 10 December 2009, at 8:36 p.m.
  • Clocks
    neilkaz -- Tuesday, 8 December 2009, at 4:54 a.m.