Gustav Thöni

Italian alpine skier

Gustav Thöni (; sometimes listed as Gustavo Thoeni; born 28 February 1951) is an Italian retired alpine ski racer.

Thöni was born in the German speaking province of South Tyrol, in the hamlet of Trafoi of the Stilfs municipality, which is situated on the northern ramp of the Stelvio Pass. He currently operates a hotel there. He did win two world titles that year, in giant slalom and slalom, at the 1974 World Championships, but those results were not included in the World Cup standings. Although he concentrated on the technical events, he did occasionally compete in the only speed event of the era, the downhill (the Super G was not run on the World Cup circuit until December 1982). His best finish in a downhill was a second place on the Hahnenkamm, Kitzbühel, Austria, in January 1975. After more than two minutes on the classic Streif course, he lost to the up and coming Austrian legend Franz Klammer by just one hundredth of a second, a distance of about at This event inspired the 1981 movie Un centesimo di secondo by Duccio Tessari, which featured Thöni himself. He finished eighth in the slalom at the 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid. As the torch had been passed on to the two top finishers, Stenmark and American Phil Mahre, Thöni retired from World Cup competition a month later in March 1980 at the age of 29. Later, he was a personal coach to Alberto Tomba (1989–1996). In parallel, he was technical director of the men's national team, and then, until 1999, general manager of both male and female national teams. Thöni was the Italian flag bearer at the opening ceremonies of the 1976 and 1980 Olympics and at the closing of the 2006 Winter Games in Torino. In 1973 and 1974 he was named "Skieur d’Or" by international ski journalists. He is mentioned in the song "Nuntereggae più" by Rino Gaetano. His cousin Roland Thöni was also a World Cup alpine ski racer in the 1970s. Roland took bronze in the slalom at the 1972 Olympics, while Gustav took the silver.