Olympic journey through time – today: February 16th

And another Olympic victory! Even on February 16th, a South Tyrolean, or in this case a South Tyrolean woman, was able to celebrate an Olympic gold medal: Gerda Weißensteiner from Steinegg was able to be celebrated as the Olympic champion in artificial track tobogganing in Lillehammer in 1994 - 26 years after Erika Lechner from Meransner.

Weißensteiner went to the Winter Games as the reigning world champion and triumphed there in impressive fashion - with best running times in all four rounds. In the end she had a huge lead of over 0,75 seconds over the German Susi Erdmann; Bronze went to the Austrian Andrea Tagwerker.

Speaking of Erdmann: She and Weißensteiner had very similar sporting careers, as both competed against each other in tobogganing at the 1992, 1994 and 1998 Olympics and in the two-man bobsleigh in 2002 and 2006.

As a reminder, a video of Gerda Weißensteiner's Olympic luge victory.

Silver for Hildgartner, bad luck for Haspinger There was also a silver medal for a South Tyrolean winter athlete on February 16th: eight years after his Olympic victory in the double-seater toboggan with Walter Plaikner, Paul Hildgartner from Kiens won silver in Lake Placid (USA) in 1980.

More than this medal, the huge bad luck of Welsberg's Ernst Haspinger is remembered from the toboggan race back then. With a reassuring lead of almost half a second, the Pusterer was on his way to Olympic gold in the fourth run. But 150 meters from the finish, turn 12 was his downfall. Haspinger was able to avoid a fall, but he finished in 21st place.

The victory went to GDR luger Bernhard Glass, silver to Hildgartner and bronze to the German Anton Winkler. And there was also a bronze medal In the sports annals you can also find a bronze medal for a South Tyrolean Olympian on February 16th, but she benefited from the outstanding performance of a teammate: Karin Moroder from Val Gardena was the starting runner of the Italian 4x5 km cross-country skiing relay, which at the last change only was in ninth place. Thanks to an incomparable comeback, Stefania Belmondo still won precious metal for the “Azzurre”.

Although a bit long and with presumably Russian commentary, this video from the 1998 season is worth watching.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPjsplHOPnw

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Olympic journey through time – today: February 16th

Day after day, “SportNews” looks back at South Tyrolean Olympic highlights that happened on that particular day at some point in the past. This time it's February 16th.

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