Christian Neureuther celebrates his 75th birthday
“Gold-Rosi” is also sorely missed for her birthday
April 28, 2024, 2:49 p.m
Christian Neureuther has a plan: for his birthday he should go to the Zugspitze and go to the ski race. Just like the family that sticks together likes to do. But his great love, Rosi Mittermaier, is missing.
If everything works out the way Christian Neureuther imagines, then it will be a bit like it was five years ago: Before things get high, they first go high. In a “special gondola,” as he says with a wink, he lets family, friends and companions travel up to the Zugspitze on Sundays. And “weather permitting,” the celebration of his 75th will also be accompanied by a ski race. Of what else?
Of course, one thing will be different than it was five years ago. Neureuther’s wife is no longer there. Rosi Mittermaier, “Gold Rosi” to everyone, a lifelong person to her husband, died on January 4, 2023. “I don’t need to say how much it hurts,” says Neureuther. “A person like Rosi, value-oriented, shapes you,” he emphasizes. “I learned a lot there. Without her, I might have often flown somewhere else.”
Christian Neureuther knows that to the public he was mostly just “the man from…”, and perhaps still is. That never did him justice, and it still won’t do him justice today. Neureuther, born and then raised as the scion of a family full of artists and academics, was always more than just “the man of…”: Rosi and Christian were a unit – she would never have been able to do it without him, he would never have been able to do it without her .
Dropping out of medical school for “Gold-Rosi”.
Neureuther was initially a successful ski racer himself: he won six slaloms in the World Cup, including the classics in Wengen and Kitzbühel, took second place in the overall ranking in 1973 and 1974, and fifth place in the Olympics in 1976 and 1980. But his greatest victory, if you want to call it that, was winning Rosi’s heart. “We were together for 57 years,” he says, his eyes still shining with happiness.
Neureuther even gave up studying medicine after six semesters for Rosi. Back then, important courses took place in the winter, “and I didn’t just have to go ski racing, I had to look after Rosi,” he says with a smile. Watch out? “Yes, if I hadn’t skied anymore, then the Hinterseers of this world, the Collombin, the Klemme, the Russi, would have come.” And again there is that wink.
After the Winter Olympics in Innsbruck in 1976, Neureuther slowly grew into the role of manager of “Gold-Rosi”, who finally became his wife on June 7, 1980. This has often brought him critical attention. Yes, Neureuther admits, “it was a burden when people always said: He’s just ‘the guy from’. But I also know what I can do.” And so he has come a long way, even without professional training.
Engagement with son Felix
Neureuther has always lived the values that his Rosi passed on to him. As early as 1992, when he was press spokesman for the German Olympic team, he criticized the then IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch and his “fight for money”. He sees sport, especially skiing, as an important social glue. No, he doesn’t close his eyes to climate change or the “justified” criticism of skiing.
But above all: allowing yourself to be controlled by others is not Neureuther’s thing. “I always wanted to be independent.” He is an alert and sometimes uncomfortable spirit, he is always curious and still “driven”, as he says, because: “I always want to make a difference”. He runs the “Move Smart” initiative for children for his son Felix. Now he also wants to collect money for meal sponsorships for needy people from the Maltese relief service. Neureuther communicated how important this new project is to him in his “birthday letter”: It says he wants to “share his happiness and joy with others.”