Kathy Kreiner

Katharine Kreiner-Phillips (born May 4, 1957) is a former World Cup alpine ski racer and Olympic gold medallist from Canada. She won the giant slalom at the 1976 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria.[1][2] First out of the gate on Friday the 13th, Kreiner prevented double gold medallist Rosi Mittermaier from sweeping the women's alpine events, as Mittermaier won the silver medal.[3][4] It was Canada's only gold medal in Innsbruck.[5][6]

Kathy Kreiner

Alpine skier
Kreiner-Phillips in 2010 with her 1976 Olympic gold medal
Disciplines	Giant Slalom, Slalom, Downhill, Combined
Club	Timmins Ski Club
Born	(1957-05-04) May 4, 1957 Timmins, Ontario, Canada
Height	5 ft 8 in (173 cm)
World Cup debut	January 18, 1972 (age 14) (first top ten)
Retired	March 1981 (age 23)
Olympics
Teams	3 – (1972, 1976, 1980)
Medals	1 (1 gold)
World Championships
Teams	5 – (1972, '74, '76, '78, '80)     includes three Olympics
Medals	1 (1 gold)
World Cup
Seasons	10 – (1972–1981)
Wins	1 – (1 GS)
Podiums	7 – (1 DH, 6 GS)
Overall titles	0 – (10th in 1974)
Discipline titles	0 – (4th in GS, 1977)
Medal record Women's alpine skiing Representing  Canada Olympic Games World Championships 1976 Innsbruck Giant Slalom

Born in Timmins, Ontario,[7] Kreiner was an alpine racing prodigy in Canada,[8] the youngest of six children of Margaret (Peggy)[9] and Harold O. Kreiner (1920–1999), a Timmins physician and her coach[10] until she made the national team.[11] He was the team doctor for the Canadian alpine ski team for the 1966 World Championships in Portillo, Chile, and the Canadian Olympic team for the winter games in 1968 in Grenoble, France.[9][10][12]

Kreiner made the national 'B' team at age 13 for a year, and was promoted to the 'A' team in the summer of 1971. She had her first World Cup top ten result in mid-January 1972, a sixth place in a downhill at Grindelwald, Switzerland. Three weeks later, Kreiner placed 14th in the slalom at the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo, Japan. She made her first World Cup podium in 1973 at Alyeska in Alaska in giant slalom,[13] and gained her first and only World Cup victory at age 16 in 1974 at Pfronten, West Germany.[14] Kreiner raced 10 seasons on the World Cup circuit and finished with 1 victory, 7 podiums, and 46 top tens. After her Olympic victory, she was named the Canadian Female Athlete of the Year in 1976.[4][15]

From 1948 to 1980, the Winter Olympics also served as the World Championships for alpine skiing, making the Olympic champion the concurrent world champion.[4] Kreiner was immediately inducted into the Canada's Sports Hall of Fame at age 18.[16] She was also inducted into the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame in 2002.[17]

Kreiner's Olympic win in 1976 surprised even her; she had shipped home most of her items from Innsbruck and had to borrow a uniform for the medal ceremony.[1] Her older sister Laurie was also a World Cup racer and two-time Olympian; she had the 28th starting position (of 43) and had tears of joy for Kathy while still in the starting gate and finished 27th.[1] Laurie had just missed an Olympic medal in 1972 with a fourth place in the giant slalom.[18]

At the 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid, Kreiner finished fifth in the downhill and ninth in the giant slalom, held at Whiteface Mountain. During her final season in 1981, Kreiner ascended her only World Cup podium in downhill, and raced independent of the Canadian national team.[19][20] Her sixth and final podium in giant slalom came nearly four years earlier at Sun Valley in March 1977.[21]

Kreiner married Dave Phillips, a former freestyle skier with the Canadian national team. As of 2020, she remains the only Olympic gold medallist from Timmins.