With her two gold medals at the 1976 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, “Gold-Rosi” Mittermaier enchanted the whole of winter sports in Germany. Rosi Mittermaier died in Garmisch-Partenkirchen at the age of 72.
Rosi Mittermaier is dead. The family informed BR. Due to her natural, honest and down-to-earth manner, the sports legend Rosi Mittermaier always remained herself even after her career.
From the Winklmoos-Alm via Reit im Winkl to the top of ski racing: Rosa Katharina Mittermaier-Neureuther – or just “Rosi” – was the outstanding German skier in the Alpine Ski World Cup in the late 1960s and especially in the 1970s .
We as a family announce the sad news that our beloved wife, mom and grandma passed away peacefully on January 4th, 2023 after a serious illness surrounded by the family.
“One of Us”
As an athlete and as a person, Rosi Mittermaier was and always will be “one of us” for many. One that drew people in, where heart and soul were the lifeblood. For themselves and especially for the people around them.
On August 5, 1950, Rosi Mittermaier saw the light of day in the Bavarian state capital. However, she does not grow up in the city of Munich, but on the idyllic Winkelmoosalm. Above Reit im Winkl, her parents had a restaurant with a ski school attached.
At the age of three she stood on skis for the first time. Following the role model of her older sister Heidi, she soon dreamed of success in winter sports – even if her mother would have preferred to send her to ballet lessons.
World Cup debut and first podium at the age of 17
At 17 she made her World Cup debut in 1967. In 1968 she made it onto the podium for the first time, and her first World Cup victory followed in 1969 in the Schruns slalom. She celebrated a total of ten victories in her career and finished on the podium 41 times.
She drove her best season in 1975/76: Mittermaier won the overall World Cup, the slalom World Cup and the combination ranking. It was also to be the season in which she finally made it to the top of the podium at a major event.
Key experience in the summer of 1975
The key experience was before the season: “In the summer of 1975 I went through a change,” she recalled in her 1977 biography “Ski-Zirkus”: “If I had already given ten precious, irretrievable years to skiing and my other talents and my had subordinated private life to sport, then the result simply had to be different than before.”
The natural talent Mittermaier thought little of gymnastics and fitness training. In time for the Olympic Games in 1976, they were able to convince their coaches to step it up a notch.
Double gold in Innsbruck 1976 and career end
With success: at the 1976 Winter Games in Innsbruck, she was fit to the point. Mittermaier won gold in the downhill and slalom, silver in the giant slalom and the world championship title in the combination. From then on she was only the celebrated “Gold-Rosi” – and resigned at the peak: Mittermaier ended her active career in May 1976.
family and social commitment
She remained present even after her career and not only because of her dream marriage to the former slalom specialist Christian Neureuther. Thanks to her son Felix, who followed in her parents’ footsteps and celebrated successes in the Ski World Cup, Rosi Mittermaier was always seen cheering on the ski slopes of the world.
But above all, social commitment, commitment to health and exercise were matters close to her heart. She was patron of the German Children’s Rheumatism Foundation, founded in 1999, and ambassador of the initiative against bone loss. Together with her husband Christian, she got many people moving with her tips for Nordic walking and skiing and inspired them for their beloved mountains.
The heart as a clock
Rosi Mittermaier was a family person and she loved the mountains, her home. She remained herself, honest, always open to new things, without ever allowing herself to be bent. Her warmth of heart, her smile were always brighter than any medal. For many, she was “one of us”.
One whose footprints in the snow will never be forgotten.
