Felix Gottwald's golden return to Nordic combined (News Feature)

By John Bagratuni Feb 24, 2010, 1:20 GMT

Whistler, Canada - Watching the world championships tempted Felix Gottwald to a comeback, or better, a new start, and now he is Austria's best-decorated winter Olympian.

A Nordic combined team event gold on Tuesday brought the 34-year-old's tally to three gold, one silver and three bronze as he moved ahead of ski legend Toni Sailer and ski-jumper Thomas Morgenstern who have three golds each.

Sailer's achievement is still unique with a sweep of the 1956 alpine golds, but Gottwald has proved his class over more than a decade in the sport including three Olympics.

'If someone had told me this (the gold) a year ago I would have considered him crazy,' said Gottwald. 'This was delight at the highest level.'

Gottwald retired three years ago, a year after having won team and sprint gold at the Turin Olympics.

He said he was tempted to join the sport again after a chat with his serviceman at the Liberec worlds where he was as an television analyst for national broadcaster ORF.

'I wanted a change in my life. I really enjoyed the life away from the sport very intensively. After Liberec I had a very good conversation with my serviceman. The next day I still had the feeling to do a restart.

'I tried to listen to my feeling, not my head,' said Gottwald.

Given his long list of merits, Gottwald had nothing to prove and returned with a philosophical approach.

'I simply want to enjoy this second career. I don't want to define myself through metres and points and seconds.'

This worked well and he said in January ahead of his first season victory (and 21st overall) in the World Cup: 'Every competition is bringing me closer to my best-energy performance, to what I can really achieve. In this respect I enjoy every step, every race, every day - it is like an energy drink towards more possibilities.'

Gottwald fell way short of the podium in the normal hill event in Whistler, but his attack against Johnny Spillane was one of the keys to victory on Tuesday.

By winning, Gottwald also upstaged two other comeback men in the sport. Todd Lodwick won two world titles in Liberec after returning, but had to settle for silver with the US team on Tuesday.

Finland's Hannu Manninen also came back this season but so far has no silverware in Whistler and still searches for this elusive individual gold.

Gottwald, meanwhile, could hardly believe what he had achieved together with Bernhard Gruber, David Kreiner and Mario Stecher.

'A year ago I was on the other side. Now it is an honour to sit among Olympic champions. It is a very special day to win with this team. It is not easy to repeat an Olympic title, but we made it,' Gottwald said.