Christl Cranz

Medal record
Competitor for  Germany
Women’s Alpine skiing
Winter Olympics
Gold	1936 Garmisch-Partenkirchen	Combined
World Championship
Gold	1934 St. Moritz	Slalom
Gold	1934 St. Moritz	Combined
Gold	1935 Mürren	Downhill
Gold	1935 Mürren	Combined
Gold	1937 Chamonix	Downhill
Gold	1937 Chamonix	Slalom
Gold	1937 Chamonix	Combined
Gold	1938 Engelberg	Slalom
Gold	1938 Engelberg	Combined
Gold	1939 Zakopane	Downhill
Gold	1939 Zakopane	Slalom
Gold	1939 Zakopane	Combined
Silver	1934 St. Moritz	Downhill
Silver	1935 Mürren	Slalom
Silver	1938 Engelberg	Downhill

Christl Franziska Antonia Cranz-Borchers (1 July 1914 – 28 September 2004) was a German alpine skier. Crantz was the dominating skier of the 1930s winning twelve world championship titles between 1934 and 1939. At the 1936 Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen she won the Alpine skiing combined competition (slalom and downhill).

Cranz was born 1914 in Brussels. She was the older sister of Rudolf Cranz. After the break-out of World War I, Cranz and her family fled from Belgium to Traifelberg near Reutlingen. There Cranz learnt skiing. Afterward the family moved to Grindelwald and Freiburg.

Alongside her apprenticeship as trainer and philologist she started a successful skiing career. In 1934 she won all titles at the German Championship. At the world championship in St. Anton she won in the slalom and in the combined competition and was second in downhill (after Swiss Anny Rüegg). She won all titles at the world championships in 1937 (Chamonix ) and 1939 (Zakopane). To this day Cranz remains the most successful competitor at Alpine World Skiing Championships with twelve gold and three silver medals.

At the 1936 Winter Olympics Cranz won the newly established alpine combined competition after a spectacular race. After a crash in the downhill competition Cranz was 19 seconds behind Laila Schou Nilsen (Norway), but she managed to win after two outstanding slalom races ahead of Käthe Grasegger (Germany) and Schou Nilsen.

At the 1941 world championship in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Cranz won three additional titles and then retired. Taking place during World War II with only Germany-friendly athletes, the championship was not acknowledged by the International Ski Federation.

In 1943 Cranz married Adolf Borchers. After the end of the war she was arrested because of her collaboration with the Nazis and was forced to do farmwork for eleven months. Cranz fled into the American Occupation Zone in 1947. Later she founded a skiing school with her husband, which she led until 1987. Cranz was admitted to the Hall of Fame of International Women's Sports.

Cranz died at the age of ninety, in Oberstaufen-Steibis, Germany, in 2004.

External links

• Christl Cranz in the German National Library catalogue (German)

Persondata
Name	Cranz, Christl
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1 July 1914
Place of birth
Date of death	28 September 2004
Place of death