Jochen Behle: When the cross-country skier disappeared on television

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Moments in TV history
“Where is Behle?” A single comment makes the winter sports enthusiast famous

At the 1980 Winter Olympics, Jochen Behle was largely unknown in Germany. That changed with one race. The cross-country skier owes his fame to a sports commentator.

Over the course of his active career, he took part in six Winter Olympics, eight World Championships and countless World Cup races, and became German champion 24 times. But the cross-country skier Jochen Behle became known above all for a single race: his 15 km cross-country skiing at the 1980 Olympic Games in Lake Placid.

Behle was only 19 years old at the time and hardly known in Germany. That changed with this race. Sports reporter Bruno Moravetz, who commented on the competition live on ZDF, played a major role in this. He kept calling into his microphone: “Where is Behle?”

The cross-country skier was hardly visible during the race, which is why Moravetz kept asking this question: “What about Behle? Where is Behle? We don’t know anything, we don’t see him. Behle is gone.” As a result, the young athlete became famous in one fell swoop.

Did the director not know Jochen Behle?

The now deceased commentator Bruno Moravetz later explained Behle’s absence from the broadcast by saying that the director simply did not know the young athlete and therefore did not show him. So Moravetz himself had to keep looking for him: “We haven’t seen Behle yet. Do you have something against Behle or is he not there or what’s going on?” he asked with increasing desperation.

Behle finally crossed the finish line in twelfth place – and from then on he was well known to the Germans. Of course, Moravetz’s comments played a much larger role in this than the very good placing in his first big race.

Successes as a trainer

His last big race was at the 1998 Olympic Games in Nagano – where he even carried the flag of the German delegation at the opening. He later started an even more successful career as a coach of German cross-country skiers – and thus ushered in the most successful period in German cross-country skiing. His protégés René Sommerfeldt (2004), Axel Teichmann (2005) and Tobias Angerer (2006 + 2007) won the overall World Cup in cross-country skiing four times. In 2010 the German team won three Olympic gold medals.

A truly great career – which began with a simple question: Where is Behle?

Here you can watch excerpts from the legendary sports broadcast again