Gottfried DIENER

Gottfried Diener had already been active in sport, especially crossbow shooting, gymnastics, and wrestling, when he was approached by Heiri Angst, a fellow wrestler, in 1951 to take up competitive bobsledding. In 1954 Diener and Angst, with Harry Warburton and five-time Olympic medalist Fritz Feierabend, won a gold medal in the four-man event at the World Championships. Feierabend, who had previously had tactical disputes with Diener over bobsled racing, was a last-minute replacement for Franz Kapus. Kapus returned in 1955 and, with Robert Alt replacing Warburton, Diener and Angst earned a second World Championship gold medal. The quartet carried their success to the 1956 Winter Olympics, where they captured gold once again. Diener retired from active competition after the Games and later served as president of the International Crossbow Shooting Union for nearly three and a half decades, from 1965 through 1999.