FIL Honorary Member Baron Eduard von Falz-Fein celebrates his 100th birthday
Vaduz / Liechtenstein (pps) Baron Eduard Alexandrowitsch von Falz-Fein, one of the three still living Honorary Members of the International Luge Federation, FIL, will celebrate his 100th birthday in Vaduz/Liechtenstein next Friday (September 14, 2012). The nobleman, a long-time FIL Treasurer (1962 until 1977), became a FIL Honorary Member in 1978 and is active as entrepreneur and patron as well as journalist, sportsman and sports official.
In 2007, Eduard Alexandrowitsch von Falz-Fein, born to Baron Alexander von Falz-Fein on September 14, 1912 in Gavrilov/Ukraine in the then Empire of the Russian Czar, was awarded the Pushkin Medal by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in recognition for his “efforts for the preservation of Russia’s cultural heritage”. In 2003, the 1936 Olympian was awarded the Gold Laurel Leaf of the Principality of Liechtenstein.
The Baron moreover played a major role in the inclusion of the sport of luge in the Olympic program and the Olympic movement in Liechtenstein. Benefitting from his network of professional and familial connections, he became the driving force behind Liechtenstein’s first participation in the 1936 Olympic Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen without even being an IOC Member Federation. Later, he was also instrumental in earning Olympic recognition for the sport of luge.
At the 1936 Olympic Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen he earned an 18th-place finish in the two-man bobsleigh competition. Subsequently he served in different positions, among others for the FIL, at altogether 16 Olympic Games.
His second love in sports after luge is cycling. As Paris cycling champion and well acquainted with numerous European sports celebrities, Eduard von Falz-Fein committed himself to cycling in Liechtenstein as of 1951. In 1951 and again from 1953 until 1973 he served as President of the Liechtenstein Cycling Federation and encouraged numerous young cycling talents during that time.
The Patriarch, who worked many years for the renowned French sports daily “L’Equipe” as a correspondent in Berlin, lives in the villa “Askania-Nova” in the Principality of Liechtenstein. The name evokes images of the former family property in today’s Ukraine which is now a nature reserve.
