Rosi Mittermaier: ski icon died after a serious illness

Garmisch-Partenkirchen
“Gold-Rosi” is dead: mourning for ski icon Rosi Mittermaier

Former ski racer Rosi Mittermaier died “after a serious illness”.

© Angelika Warmuth / DPA

German sport mourns. Ski icon Rosi Mittermaier has died. In 1976, the down-to-earth Bavarian had become a star at the Olympics.

German ski icon Rosi Mittermaier is dead. Her family announced this on Thursday. The former ski racer and two-time Olympic champion fell asleep peacefully on Wednesday with her family after a serious illness. The mother of the former German ski star Felix Neureuther was 72 years old.

Of the German Ski Association paid tribute to Mittermaier as “an extraordinary sports personality who never let himself be bent”. With her likeable, empathetic and down-to-earth nature, she took people’s hearts by storm throughout her life. “With Rosi Mittermaier, the ski family loses an extraordinary personality who rightly enjoyed great popularity beyond the sport,” explained DSV President Franz Steinle.

Mittermaier provided one of the biggest celebrations in German Olympic history when she won two gold medals in downhill and slalom and one silver medal in giant slalom in Innsbruck in 1976. “These uniquely emotional moments still feel as if they were yesterday,” said former DOSB President Alfons Hörmann.

Rosi Mittermaier became “Gold-Rosi” in 1976

Mittermaier was then regularly asked about Innsbruck. The down-to-earth Upper Bavarian became known as “Gold-Rosi” and was practically a pop star after the Olympics. “In my parents’ house there was a whole room full of mail and parcels. The postman told us that 27,000 letters came in a month, he got totally mad because he had to bring the whole flood up to the Winklmoosalm,” recalled Mittermaier on the occasion of her 70th birthday.

She loved skiing. “For me, pure skiing is still the best thing there is and where my heart will always rise,” said the alpine icon, who didn’t want to be reduced to the competitive athlete of that time.

She had achieved too many other goals in her life for that. As an advertising ambassador, for example, she traveled the world. Mittermaier founded a family in Garmisch with her husband, the former ski racer Christian Neureuther. Son Felix later became the most successful German racing driver in World Cup history.

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