Sapporo Winter Olympics - Karl Schranz Disqualification Press Conference

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Sapporo Winter Olympics - Karl Schranz Disqualification Press Conference

Alpine Skiing - 1972 Sapporo Winter Olympics - Karl Schranz Disqualification Press Conference
International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Avery Brundage announces to the worlds press that Austrian skier Karl Schranz is disqualified from the Games for breaching the Olympic amateur eligibility code by allowing his name and photograph to be used for advertising purposes.
Schranz, the 1969 and 1970 overall World Cup champion, was the most celebrated, and highly paid, skier of the time. He did not deny the accusation but contended that he was being punished for a crime that all athletes were guilty of: Its an emphasis on the wrong principle. I think the Olympics should be a contest for all sportsman with no regard of colour, race, or wealth. The entire Austrian team threatened to boycott in solidarity, and on flying home to Vienna Schranz was greeted as a hero by a crowd of thousands. What further added insult to injury was that, at the age of 33, he had specifically delayed his retirement in order to win a gold medal, something that had eluded him in his three previous appearances (notably he was also controversially disqualified, but for an on-piste incident, at Grenoble four years earlier).
That Schranz was indeed made a scapegoat seems beyond debate. Brundage, a zealous advocate of amateurism throughout his entire career, viewed alpine skiing as the most flagrant violator of the amateur rules, openly and rampantly commercial with its top competitors receiving endorsements and flying around the World Cup circuit in a jet-set lifestyle while brandishing ski equipment emblazoned with manufacturers logos to huge television audiences. The IOC and the FIS (International Ski Federation) had come to loggerheads on numerous occasions over the issue, and with the 84 year-old Brundage stepping down as President later that year, he moved to have alpine skiing removed entirely from the programme at Sapporo. When his IOC colleagues prevented this drastic proced

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