Anita WACHTER

Anita Wachter won gold medals in slalom and giant slalom at the 1985 World Junior Championships at Jasná, Slovakia, and that year was Austrian Champion in combined. It presaged a great career at the top of ski racing in the late 1980s and 1990s. She won her first World Cup race with a slalom victory at Courmeyeur in 1987. Wachter came through with a combined gold medal at her first Winter Olympics at Calgary in 1988. She would compete again at the 1992 Winter Olympics, winning silver medals in both giant slalom and combined, and at Lillehammer in 1994, just missing a GS medal with a fourth-place finish.

From 1991-99 Wachter won five medals at the World Championships with two silvers and three bronzes. Her career was short-circuited with an ACL tear in January 1998, which kept her out of the Nagano Olympics, but she came back in 1999 to win a bronze medal at the Vail Worlds in giant slalom. At her best in GS, Wachter recorded 19 World Cup race wins, with 14 in GS and 45 podiums in that event alone, from her total of 75 World Cup podiums. Wachter won the seasonal overall World Cup in the 1992-93 season, and won five event seasonal World Cups, winning in giant slalom in 1990 and 1994 and in combined in 1990, 1993, and 1996. She was a six-time Austrian Champion, winning three in giant slalom in 1990, 1994, and 1997.

Wachter retired after the 2001 World Championships in Sankt Anton am Arlberg, where she struggled. She later settled in Bartholomäberg with her husband, ski racer Rainer Salzgeber, and their two daughters. Wachter was Austrian Sportswoman of the Year in 1993 and in 1992 was given a gold medal for services to the Republic of Austria.