Markus Prock (born 22 June 1964) is an

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

n luger who competed between 1983 and 2002. Born in Innsbruck, Prock competed in six

Winter Olympics The Winter Olympic Games (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques d'hiver) is a major international multi-sport event held once every four years for sports practiced on snow and ice. The first Winter Olympic Games, the 1924 Winter Olympics, were h ...

winning three medals in the men's singles event with two silvers (

1992 File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment building in Amsterdam after two of its engines ...

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nelson Ma ...

) and one bronze (

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains independence from Indonesia and ...

). Prock grew up in the village of

Mieders Mieders is a municipality in the southern part of the district Innsbruck-Land in the Austrian state of Tyrol. It is located on the right side of the Stubaital 10.60 km south of Innsbruck. History Founded in 1100, the scattered village is l ...

in the Stubaital. His parents managed a petrol station and a

pension A pension (, from Latin ''pensiō'', "payment") is a fund into which a sum of money is added during an employee's employment years and from which payments are drawn to support the person's retirement from work in the form of periodic payments ...

. He competed in several sports in his youth, ski racing, playing football and sprinting, achieving personal bests of 22.8s for the

200m The 200 metres, or 200-meter dash, is a sprint running event. On an outdoor 400 metre racetrack, the race begins on the curve and ends on the home straight, so a combination of techniques is needed to successfully run the race. A slightl ...

and 50.9s for the 400m whilst in high school. He took up luge after racing in a competition for teenagers held at

Igls Innsbruck (; bar, Innschbruck, label= Austro-Bavarian ) is the capital of Tyrol and the fifth-largest city in Austria. On the River Inn, at its junction with the Wipp Valley, which provides access to the Brenner Pass to the south, it had a ...

. Prock was known for his rivalry with

Georg Hackl Georg Hackl (often named: Hackl Schorsch, ; born 9 September 1966) is a German former luger who was three time Olympic and World Champion. He is known affectionately as ''Hackl-Schorsch'' or as the ''Speeding Weißwurst'' a reference to what he ...

, with Prock being dominant in World Cup competition whilst Hackl consistently achieved success at the Winter Olympics. Prock was noted for his athleticism and his powerful start. At the

FIL World Luge Championships The FIL World Luge Championships, part of the International Luge Federation (FIL) have taken place on an almost annual basis in non- Winter Olympics years since 1955. These championships are shown for artificial tracks. See FIL World Luge Natura ...

, Prock won 13 medals, including five gold (Men's singles:

1987 File:1987 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes after leaving the Port of Zeebrugge in Belgium, killing 193; Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashes after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airpor ...

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 800, causing the plane to crash and killing everyone on b ...

; Mixed team: 1996,

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of ...

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school s ...

), four silvers (Men's singles:

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...

, 1997; Mixed team:

1991 File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the ...

1993 File:1993 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Oslo I Accord is signed in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict; The Russian White House is shelled during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis; Czechoslovakia is peace ...

), and four bronzes (Men's singles:

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The Great Hanshin earthquake strike ...

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a multi-national coalition in an invasion of Afghanistan ...

; Mixed team: 1995,

). Prock won ten medals at the

FIL European Luge Championships The FIL European Luge Championships, part of the International Luge Federation (FIL) have taken place since 1914. From 1914 to 1934, these championships were part of the Internationaler Schlittensportsverband (ISSV - International Sled Sport Federat ...

with five in men's singles (gold:

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...

; silver: 1988,

) and five medals in the mixed team event (silver:

; bronze: 1994, 1998, 2002). He also won the overall

Luge World Cup The Luge World Cup season is a yearly competition first organized by the International Luge Federation since 1977–78. The World Cup is the highest level season-long competition in the sport. Men's singles *Medals: Women's singles *Med ...

ten times in men's singles (198788, 199091, 199192, 199293, 199394, 199495, 199596, 199697, 199899, 200102). After retiring from competition, Prock was appointed as sporting director of the Austrian Luge Federation in 2002. He left this role in November 2018, when he was elected as the Federation's president, receiving 88 percent of the vote in the Federation's national conference in

Semmering, Austria Semmering is a town in the district of Neunkirchen in the Austrian state of Lower Austria. It is noted for its skiing, and has hosted the Alpine skiing World Cup The FIS Alpine Ski World Cup is the top international circuit of alpine skiing c ...

. He is the father of luger

Hannah Prock Hannah Prock (born 2 February 2000) is an Austrian luger. She competed in the women's singles event at the 2018 Winter Olympics an2022 Winter OlympicsShe took her first podium finish in the Luge World Cup in January 2019 when she finished third ...

. He also manages his nephew,

Gregor Schlierenzauer Gregor Schlierenzauer (; born 7 January 1990) is an Austrian former ski jumper who competed from 2006 to 2021. He is one of the most successful ski jumpers of all time, having won the Ski Jumping World Cup overall title, the Four Hills Tourna ...

, who was second in the 200607

Ski jumping World Cup The FIS Ski Jumping World Cup is the world's highest level of ski jumping and the FIS Ski Flying World Cup as the subdivisional part of the competition. It was founded by Torbjørn Yggeseth for the 1979/80 season and organized by the Internatio ...

entering the

FIS Nordic World Ski Championships 2007 The FIS Nordic World Ski Championships 2007 took place 22 February – 4 March 2007 in Sapporo, Japan. It was the second time this city has hosted these championships, having previously done so in the 1972 Winter Olympics. Sapporo was selecte ...

Sapporo ( ain, サッ・ポロ・ペッ, Satporopet, lit=Dry, Great River) is a city in Japan. It is the largest city north of Tokyo and the largest city on Hokkaido, the northernmost main island of the country. It ranks as the fifth most populous ci ...

, Japan. Schlierenzauer won a gold in the team large hill at those championships.

References

1984 luge men's singles results2007 Luge World Championships interview.FIL-Luge profileHickoksports.com results on Olympic champions in luge and skeleton.Hickok sports information on World champions in luge and skeleton.