Bernhard GRUBER

Berni Gruber has two passions: Nordic Combined and rock music. Before he decided to commit to pursuing an athletic carreer and attending the Ski Gymnasium in Stams, Austria, he even went to a music school. Although Gruber has been a fixture in the Nordic Combined World Cup since 1998, he always finds time and opportunity to make music part of his life, too.

Together with his Nordic Combined fellow athletes Tino Edelmann, Ronny Heer and Christoph Menz, guitar player Gruber founded a band called the "Telemarkers" in 2009 and recorded a song called "Für den einen Moment" ("For that one moment") which was meant as an anthem for the sport of Nordic Combined. In the winter of 2015/16, Gruber reunited with Edelmann and with new drummer, Finnish Nordic Combined athlete Ilkka Herola, the trio played two amazing gigs, one at the TRIPLE in Seefeld and one at the World Cup Finals and 50th Anniversary weekend in Schonach.

With four Olympic, six World Championship medals and six World Cup victories in 212 World Cup starts, Gruber definitely had a great career something to show for after the season 2013/14 but his biggest moment was still to come in the following winter of 2014/15. As the first Austrian in the history of the sport, Gruber won gold at the World Championships in Falun and also upped his World Cup victory count to five. He added one more victory in Val di Fiemme to his merit list in the season 2015/16.