A Mysterious Birthday in South Tyrol

Walter Plaikner, Italy’s world-renowned luge legend, had intended to celebrate his 75th birthday quietly with his family. But things turned out very differently.

By Klaus Angermann, longtime ZDF luge correspondent, who has covered the sport since 1964 and attended twelve Olympic Winter Games.

Italy’s entire luge “Who’s Who” turned up for his anniversary. “Slittinisti” from seven decades - Olympic champions, world champions, European champions, and many other protagonists paid their respects to a completely stunned honoree and celebrated the icon in his home village of Kiens in the Pustertal.

Maria-Luise Rainer - the ever-creative, vivacious former FIL Sports Director - had come up with the idea of giving her compatriot and role model this unexpected gift. “Sensational, that so many came. Walter beamed the way he used to when he and Paul Hildgartner - or his athletes - had won a medal,” was her verdict. But never before had she seen him “so emotional that he had to hold back a few tears.”

It was a unique and remarkable 50-strong guard of honor, draped in medals, paying tribute to a grand old master of the sport. Among those who came to congratulate: 1994 Lillehammer Olympic champion Gerda Weißensteiner; the four-leaf clover of luge medals that is the Huber brothers - Norbert, Wilfried, and Arnold; the 2006 Turin bronze doubles team of Gerhard Plankensteiner and Oswald Haselrieder; and of course the most successful luge Olympian of all time, Armin Zöggeler, with gold, silver, and bronze at six Olympic Games. And many other protagonists of Italian luge - a sport carried so distinctively by South Tyrol - were there as well.

That Paul Hildgartner (74), Plaikner’s doubles partner, also appeared went without saying - just as the two of them meet every week to play the ancient card game “Watten.” The question they play for: who picks up the tab today?

The birthday boy was equally proud that South Tyrol’s young luge heroes paid their respects: the two Cortina gold doubles of Marion Oberhofer/Andrea Vötter and Emanuel Rieder/Simon Katzenwalder, as well as bronze medalist Dominik Fischnaller from the Pustertal luge stronghold of Meransen.

And Plaikner beamed when even Liechtenstein’s veteran Wolfgang Schädler (68) embraced him - the three-time Olympian for the small principality and later a globe-trotting coach.

Organizer Maria-Luise Rainer had made her Olympic debut at the 1976 Innsbruck Winter Games as a 16-year-old, the second-youngest participant - while Walter Plaikner was there to bid farewell as an active competitor.

1971 - European Champion

His was the career of a pure doubles specialist who, together with his pilot and friend Paul Hildgartner, wrote his name into every golden book of luge history. The pair from Kiens were barely out of their teens - Plaikner 19, pilot Hildgartner just 18 - when they became European champions in January 1971 on the demanding Imst ice track, and then two weeks later triumphed at the World Championships on the idyllic home track in Olang. As did Karl Brunner in the singles and Erika Lechner, who confirmed her 1968 Olympic gold from Grenoble with a World Championship silver medal.

East Germany, which also dominated the sliding sports in those years, suffered one of its most painful defeats in Olang, forced to settle for a single medal: bronze through the doubles team of Horst Hörnlein and Reinhard Bredow.

1972 - Olympic Champions

A year later, at the 1972 Sapporo Olympic Games, luge history was made: in the doubles, there were two Olympic champions. A golden reunion - Paul Hildgartner and Walter Plaikner, and Hörnlein/Bredow. Both pairs had posted identical times across two runs, to the hundredth of a second, and in a judgment of Solomonic fairness, FIL and the IOC awarded Olympic gold to both. As old photographs show, it was a tight fit on the podest.

This historic decision of 1972 was never repeated. The world federation subsequently ruled that thousandths of a second would henceforth determine the outcome. Fifty-five years on, that is still the case.

Sled Builder and Tinkerer

After retiring from competition, Walter Plaikner earned respect and recognition for more than 40 years as a coach and sled builder - an eternal tinkerer. Nearly 30 of those years were spent in various stints with Italy, six with Japan, four with the United States, and likewise with Russia. The Sochi chapter came to an abrupt and unpleasant end - despite two silver medals.

Alongside his coaching duties, Walter Plaikner also served the FIL intensively as an official. He stands in the world federation’s annals as a materials expert - co-responsible for the development of crash helmets, boots, and numerous other technical details. For many years the name Plaikner was synonymous with the chairmanship of the Technical Commission, not always without controversy - especially when he uncovered rule-bending.

It was Bert Isatitsch, the visionary, passionate pioneer from Austria and FIL’s first president in 1957, who first brought him into the FIL fold. After 1976, it was Brigitte Fink (1940-2024) - the dynamic, generous patron and energetic leader of Italian luge - who brought him on board as coach of the Azzurri. “Plawi,” she told him - her nickname for Plaikner - “if you need something, you’ll get it.” Thanks to that promise, Plaikner built an era of success that would culminate in Armin Zöggeler.

And once more, organizers brought him into their fold: those of Cortina 2026. Walter Plaikner as a co-designer of the Pista Olimpica Eugenio Monti - above all to ensure safe racing lines through the curves. Only one of the 16 was beyond his reach: it was the curva quattro, the curve that does not bear his signature. It became the problem curve.

Sheep, Hens, and Bees

All of this, and many anecdotes, were the topics of conversation at Walter Plaikner’s 75th birthday celebration, which lasted until nearly midnight. Wife Christa, the five children, and numerous grandchildren listened with pride - for they, his family, had shared the passion of their husband and father all these years.

Walter Plaikner has now set “the sled” aside. After raising sheep, the senior now keeps laying hens and tends his beehives - “for the honey of life.”

His birthday guests also ensured his future thirst would be well catered for: their gift was an ancient Pustertal wheelbarrow, filled - fittingly for his age - with 75 international varieties of beer. “To drink them all, I’ll have to stick around a few more years,” smiled the ever-modest and contented birthday man.

May there be many more such years - in health and happiness. That is also the heartfelt wish of the great FIL family for their so deserving official, Walter Plaikner, whose birthday celebration had been the best-kept secret in South Tyrolean luge until October 24.