With his father owning a sports store, Karl Molitor was exposed to skiing at a young age. His original specialty was ski jumping, but he eventually decided to switch to downhill and slalom and won his first national championship (in the downhill) in 1939. He also earned a bronze medal in the downhill at that year’s World Championships. His international career was interrupted by World War II, but he remained active and, through 1948, captured an additional seven national championships: three in the slalom (1942, 1946, 1948), three in the combined (1945, 1946, 1948), and one more in the downhill (1946). He also saw great success in Switzerland’s prestigious Lauberhornrennen, earning a total of eleven victories. He finally got his chance to compete in the Winter Olympics in 1948, where he took silver in the combined and bronze in the downhill (tied with his compatriot Ralph Olinger), and finished in eighth place in the slalom. By the end of the year he had retired from active competition and married Antoinette Meyer, who had earned a silver medal in the slalom at the 1948 Games. They settled in Wengen and opened a sports shop, which they ran together until 1987, at which point they passed the business on to their son. Molitor also worked as a ski coach and instructor and mountain guide and served on the downhill and slalom committee of the International Ski Federation, as the president of Skiclubs Wengen, and as director of the Lauberhornrennen. As of 2012, in his 90s, he remains athletically active in a variety of sports.
Switzerland