Flying Franz
A very exciting skiing race happened during the 1976 winter Olympics in Innsbruck,Austria.Austrian skiing champion Franz Klammer was the favourite to win the downhill skiing gold medal, and more than 60,000 fans had come to cheer for him. But when they heard that Franz would be the last skier on the course, they were worried. After all the other competitors had skied down the hill, the course would be dangerously icy.
Swiss champion Bernhard Russi was the third skier of the day, and he was the fastest with a time of 1 minute,46.06 seconds. Eleven more skiers came down the mountain, pushing a lot of the snow off the course as they went. But Bernhard's time was still the fastest. Then it was Franz's turn.
The man known as 'The Klammer Express' crouched down and looked out over the icy course below him. Then he took off. Halfway down, Franz's time was slower than Bernhard's. Franz pushed himself to go faster, and he seemed to fly down the last part of the course. He could hear the crowd cheering, and that told him all he needed to know. He crossed the finishing line with a time of 1 minute, 45.73 seconds. He was 0.33 of a second faster than Bernhard, and fast enough to win the gold medal.
After the race, Franz said that he had been terrified. ' I thought I wad going to crash all the way!' He said.