Word: schranz
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When Skier Karl Schranz returned to Austria last week from Japan, where he had been barred from competition in the Winter Olympics, he got a hero's welcome from 100,000 Viennese -more than had turned out to see either John F. Kennedy or Queen Elizabeth II. The singing, cheering crowds demonstrated a sound instinct for commercial values. A disproportionate share of Austria's money and jobs comes from the skimaking industry, with a mighty boost from the prestige of ski champions like Schranz...
...International Olympic Committee (I.O.C.). In calling upon Emperor Hirohito officially to open the 1972 Winter Games in Sapporo, Japan, last week, Brundage said: "May the Olympic code of fair play and good sportsmanship prevail." At least one observer was unimpressed by Brundage's sentiment. Snapped Austrian Skier Karl Schranz: "That's ridiculous, coming from...
...Schranz, who watched the ceremonies on TV in a Sapporo hotel room, had good reason to be bitter. When Olympic history is written, he will be remembered as the man who was caught in the middle of a face-saving showdown between Brundage and the Fédération Internationale de Ski (F.I.S.). The issue was clear-cut. For years F.I.S. skiers have been paid-either openly or under the table-for endorsing equipment. And for years Brundage has been threatening to bar the "trained seals of the merchandisers" from Olympic competition for violating the rule against professionalism...
Unmoved. "It's absurd!" cried Austrian Ski Federation President Karl Heinz Klee. "Schranz is being sacrificed in a highly unethical manner." Sneered Vienna's Kronen Zeitung: "Amateurs of Brundage's Olympic imagination exist only in the childhood dreams of this bad old man." The old man was unmoved. Said Klee: "Under the circumstances, there is only one road open to us-the road home." After a night of consultations, however, the Austrians decided to compete, ostensibly at the urging of Schranz...
...from contrite, Schranz pointed out that "the Russians are subsidized by their government, and all international athletes get help from one source or another." While Brundage ignores the open professionalism of Russian and other competitors from Iron Curtain countries because he says he lacks "documentation," his case against Schranz was provoked in part by the skier's criticism of the I.O.C. for its "19th century attitudes" and for "favoring rich competitors over poor ones." Brundage in turn characterized Schranz as a "blatant and verbose offender" who is "disrespectful to the Olympic movement...