Ingemar Stenmark Biography

BIRTH: March 18, 1956, Sweden

Ingemar Stenmark Biography : Alpine Ski Racer, Life & Facts

Ingemar Stenmark is a former Swedish World Cup alpine ski racer. He set the record with 86 World Cup wins during the fifteen years of his professional career. He is considered one of the most famous Swedish athletes ever.

Ingemar Stenmark was born on March 18, 1956, in Sweden. He grew up in the area which was just a few miles from the Arctic Circle. He used to live with his grandparents on a farm outside Tarnaby before he moved into town. Stenmark got interested in skiing because of his father, Erik Stenmark, who was also a national skier. He started skiing at the age of five and his first coach was his father.

Stenmark was shy and reserved as a kid. He started skiing because it was something he could enjoy alone. He used to ski every day for hours, after school and even during the cold weather. His hard work soon began to pay off. Stenmark was seven when he won his first race. By the age of eight, he’d won his first national competition. In 1965 he was selected for an annual international race in Italy. He placed fourteenth in the race during his first attempt of the slalom. To focus more on the sport Stenmark fully committed his time to skiing. After he completed his primary education, he left school instead of pursuing higher education.

Stenmark started to train with the Swiss junior national team at the age of thirteen. He trained for the worst: the giant slalom on the steeper and the more challenging courses in Italy. In the 1972-73 season, his best ranks were fourth and fifth in the Swedish junior nationals.

The next season, Stenmark made significant improvement once he realized he could get more consistent wins by not taking unnecessary risks during the races.

The most significant moment of Stenmark’s career came in 1974. He was a part of the European racing circuit and participated in his first ever World Cup event where he placed second in the slalom. Soon after, in December 1974, he got his first World Cup victory with the slalom at Madonna di Campiglio in Italy. In the 1978-79 season he won a total of thirteen slalom races, a record no one has managed to beat.

After he won three back to back world cup titles, he was viewed as a star in Sweden. He also received the highest Swedish honor, a special gold medal, bestowed upon him by Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf. However, for Stenmark, the year 1979 did not end well. He suffered from a concussion and sustained injuries during a training run on the Italian Alps in September 1979. It took him three weeks to recover in the hospital. Soon after, during the 1979-80 World Cup competition, Stenmark won ten races. He again took both the slalom and giant slalom titles but he lost the world cup title by six points and came in second instead. In 1980, he participated in the Olympic Games in Lake Placid, New York.

In 1981, he won the gold medal in the slalom and got silver in the giant slalom at the World Championship in Schladming. In the 1982 World Championship in Austria, he got the silver medal.

The year 1984 was an unfortunate one for Stenmark. He was not allowed to participate in the 1984 Olympic Games due to his numerous advertisement contracts which gave him the status of a professional. It was against the eligibility criteria set for the Olympic Games. In 1988 he was again allowed to compete in the Olympics once he had taken care of his endorsement contracts. However, Stenmark was not in his full form that season. In 1989, he announced his retirement from the sport.

Stenmark has been married thrice. His first marriage was to Ann Ufhagen, which lasted until 1988. His last marriage was in 2016; he married his long-time girlfriend, Tarja Olli. He is the father of two daughters.

With his notable achievements in the sport, Stenmark became the national icon for Sweden from 1976 to 1978.