56OLYMPIC REVIEWIwas seven, I had just started skiing and I was Franz Klammer. Ten out of 10 childrenchose to be Franz Klammer in those days, and itwas no different in my home village of Stumm inTyrol," says Stephan Eberharter."We even bent our ski-poles, just to look likeKlammer in race position. Remembering the winners'times from the downhill race in 1976 is something I can do standing on my head: 1:45.73 for FranzKlammer, beating Bernhard Russi by 33 hundreds."Some 35 years later the memories of the thenseven-year-old Eberharter glitter like fresh snow. Andthe excitement of seeing Innsbruck back on theOlympic map as the venue for the first Winter YouthOlympic Games (YOG) is increasing day by day, asEberharter can testify after attending the one-year-to-go celebration event with fellow Austrians, the 1980Olympic downhill champion Leonhard Stock andcurrent female dynamo Elisabeth Goergl. Goerglperformed as a singer during the OpeningCeremony at the FIS Ski World Championships 2011 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen before winning gold in the super-G the next day and, five days later,another gold in the ladies downhill race - allwitnessed by Eberharter, who reported on theavalanche of Austrian skiing triumphs in Garmisch as a newspaper columnist.Eberharter's career took off out of nowhere when,as a relative unknown, he became a double goldmedallist (super-G and combined) at the 1991 WorldChampionships in Saalbach. His first Olympicexperience as an athlete was one year later inAlbertville, but he finished empty-handed and injured:"I crashed hard in super-G training." It was thebeginning of a big drop in form and the previouslyhappy accordion player was unable to strike the rightnote on the slopes. Was he just a one-day wonder?However, his second Olympic appearance inNagano in 1998 silenced the critics after five seasonsin the doldrums. "I had been dropped from the Austrian team andwas only allowed to join in with the training sessions ?STEPHAN EBERHARTERGOLDENMOMENTINSPIRED BY A LEGEND FROM THE 1976 OLYMPICWINTER GAMES IN INNSBRUCK, THE QUIETLY-SPOKENSTEPHAN EBERHARTERBECAME AN OLYMPICSKIING CHAMPION AT THE THIRD TIME OF ASKING, DISCOVERS ADI KORNFELD RightEberharterwon threemedals (gold,silver andbronze) at the2002 WinterOlympic Gamesin Salt Lake City