Günther Mader (born 24 June 1964) is a former alpine ski racer and Olympic medalist from

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

. Born in

Matrei am Brenner Matrei am Brenner is a small municipality in the southern part of the District Innsbruck-Land and is located approximately 17 km south of Innsbruck. Matrei has always been an important station for commerce. On 1 January 2022 the municipalitie ...

Tyrol Tyrol ( ; historically the Tyrole; ; ) is a historical region in the Alps of Northern Italy and western Austria. The area was historically the core of the County of Tyrol, part of the Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary, f ...

, he is one of only five men to have won

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the name is ...

races in all five alpine disciplines ( downhill,

super-G Super giant slalom, or super-G, is a racing discipline of alpine skiing. Along with the faster downhill, it is regarded as a "speed" event, in contrast to the technical events giant slalom and slalom. It debuted as an official World Cup event ...

giant slalom Giant slalom (GS) is an alpine skiing and alpine snowboarding competitive discipline. It involves racing between sets of poles ("gates") spaced at a greater distance from each other than in Slalom skiing, slalom but less than in Super-G. Giant sl ...

, slalom, and combined).

Career

Mader made his World Cup debut at age 18 and competed for 16 seasons, including four

Winter Olympics The Winter Olympic Games (), also known as the Winter Olympics, is a major international multi-sport event held once every four years for sports practiced on snow and ice. The first Winter Olympic Games, the 1924 Winter Olympics, were held i ...

and seven

world championships A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game ...

. He was the bronze medalist in the downhill at the 1992 Olympics and won a total of six medals in the world championships. He won his first championship medal, the silver medal in the slalom Race at

Crans Montana Crans-Montana is a municipality in the district of Sierre in the canton of Valais, Switzerland. On 1 January 2017 the former municipalities of Chermignon, Mollens, Montana and Randogne merged to form the new municipality of Crans-Montana. Cr ...

in 1987, after only placing eighth after the first leg of the competition. Mader won two World Cup season titles, giant slalom in

1990 Important events of 1990 include the Reunification of Germany and the unification of Yemen, the formal beginning of the Human Genome Project (finished in 2003), the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, the separation of Namibia from South ...

and combined in

1996 1996 was designated as: * International Year for the Eradication of Poverty Events January * January 8 – A Zairean cargo plane crashes into a crowded market in the center of the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo ...

, and placed second in the overall World Cup standings in

1995 1995 was designated as: * United Nations Year for Tolerance * World Year of Peoples' Commemoration of the Victims of the Second World War This was the first year that the Internet was entirely privatized, with the United States government ...

and 1996, and third in 1990. Without his 14 wins, he did achieve another 27 places in World Cup races. His only World Cup victory in downhill was the prestigious

Hahnenkamm Hahnenkamm (means "comb (anatomy), comb") may refer to *Hahnenkamm (Verwaltungsgemeinschaft), a federation of municipalities in Bavaria, Germany *Hahnenkamm, Greenland, a mountain in the Stauning Alps, Greenland *Hahnenkamm, Kitzbühel, a mountain ...

in Kitzbühel, Austria, in

at age 31. Mader retired from competition after the

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for Lunar water, frozen water, in soil i ...

season with 14 World Cup victories, 44 podiums, and 146 top ten finishes.Ski-db.com
- results - Günther Mader - accessed 2011-01-16 Only 13 days after his retirement in March 1998, he suffered a

stroke Stroke is a medical condition in which poor cerebral circulation, blood flow to a part of the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: brain ischemia, ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and intracranial hemorrhage, hemor ...

: as a result the right side of his body was paralysed and he lost 85 percent of his vocabulary. However he recovered to the greatest possible extent. After convalescence, he wrote a book titled ''ÜberLeben'' which covered his career, the stroke and his work as director of racing at ski manufacturer Salomon in Austria, a position he took up during his recovery from his stroke. ''ÜberLeben'' has a double meaning in German, translatable as "about life" but also as "survival".

World Cup victories

Season titles

Individual races

* 14 victories - (1 DH, 6 SG, 2 GS, 1 SL, 4 K) * 44 podiums - (6 DH, 12 SG, 8 GS, 5 SL, 13 K)

References

External links

* * * ' {{DEFAULTSORT:Mader, Gunther Austrian male alpine skiers Olympic bronze medalists for Austria Olympic alpine skiers for Austria Alpine skiers at the 1988 Winter Olympics Alpine skiers at the 1992 Winter Olympics Alpine skiers at the 1994 Winter Olympics Alpine skiers at the 1998 Winter Olympics 1964 births Living people Olympic medalists in alpine skiing FIS Alpine Ski World Cup champions Medalists at the 1992 Winter Olympics Recipients of the Decoration of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria People from Innsbruck-Land District 20th-century Austrian sportsmen