Teams 2 – (1992, 1994) Retired January 1999 Name Patrick Ortlieb | Wins 4 – (3 DH, 1 SG) Weight 91 kg Seasons 11 – (1989–99) Height 1.88 m | |
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World Cup debut 9 December 1988 (age 21) Teams 4 – (1991, 1993, 1996, 1997) Olympic medals Alpine Skiing at the 1992 Winter Olympics - Men's Downhill Similar People Nina Ortlieb, Gunther Mader, Franck Piccard | ||
Sierra Nevada 96 - Men's Downhill, live - Armin Assinger
Patrick Ortlieb (born 17 May 1967) is a former World Cup alpine ski racer and Olympic gold medalist from Austria. A specialist in the speed events, he was also a world champion in the downhill event.
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Born in Bregenz in Vorarlberg, Ortlieb started skiing relatively late at the age of 13. He won the downhill event at the 1992 Winter Olympics in France, gathered 20 podiums and 60 top tens at World Cup races, and was World Champion in 1996 in downhill. At the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer he finished fourth in the downhill at Kvitfjell. A month earlier, he won the famed downhill on the Hahnenkamm in Kitzbühel, Austria.
Five years later in January 1999, Ortlieb's racing career ended after a serious crash during a practice run on the same slope at Kitzbühel. He suffered a compound fracture of the right femur and a badly dislocated and slightly fractured right hip after losing control & crashing into the safety nets at the Hausbergkante (mountain house corner). Later in the year, he was elected to the National Council of Austria for the far-right/populist Freedom Party of Austria, where he stayed for three years. He currently runs a four-star hotel, named Hotel Montana, in Lech am Arlberg in Vorarlberg.
