Olympedia – Alois Podhajsky

Austrian dressage rider Alois Podhajsky participated in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Individually, he won the bronze medal riding Nero and with the Austrian team he finished an unfortunate fourth. He returned to the 1948 London Olympics after World War II and finished seventh individually on Teja.

Podhajsky was an infantry officer by profession. In 1939, he was named commander of the Spanish Riding School, a position he held until 1964. In February and March 1945, he evacuated the Lipizzaners from Wien (Vienna) to protect them from the advancing Russian Red Army by placing them under the protection of US-General George Patton. The return of the riding school to the original building in Wien (Vienna), however, was not possible until 1955.