Ernst Oppacher was born October 8, 1892, in Merano, a historic resort city in South Tyrol that was then under the jurisdiction of the Austro-Hungarian Empire but is today part of Italy. He was raised as a Roman Catholic. His father passed away when he was quite young, and his mother Marie turned to his uncle Ernest Wlatnigg for support. Ernest was the Gränzinspector of the Südbahn-Telegraphen (Austrian Southern Railway), a respected inventor and an enthusiastic member of the SC Wörthersee who served as a judge at several Austrian figure skating competitions during the Edwardian era.
Ernst and his older brother Josef were all-around athletes who excelled in swimming and boating. Ernst won a swimming contest at the Ronacher's Kurhotel Annenheim am Ossiacher See in his youth. The brothers Oppacher took up figure skating at the SC Wörthersee as boys and devoted much of their free time to the sport while studying at the Staats-Obergymnasiums in Klagenfurt. The brothers earned prizes at numerous figure skating competitions for boys in the late Edwardian era and by 1909, Ernst had placed second to Austrian Champion Anton Steiner in the Internationale Herren-Kunstlaufen class at a competition in Vienna, two places ahead of his schoolmate Willy Böckl. Ernst and Willy's rivalry began when they first started competing. From 1907 to 1909, Willy was only able to beat Ernst once in a youth pairs skating event in 1908. Willy, of course, went on to win four World titles in the roaring twenties. Ernst's skating career was nearly as impressive.
Ernst Oppacher, Fritz Kachler and Willy Böckl
After missing the 1911 Austrian Championships due to an inner ear infection, Ernst earned his first of three consecutive silver medals at the event in 1912. That same year, he placed third in the contest for the Dr. Karl von Korper-Preis in Vienna. By this time, he was representing the Wiener Eislaufverein. In 1913, Ernst placed fifth in his debut at the World Championships and won international competitions held in Klagenfurt and Troppau. In 1914, he was fourth at both at the European and World Championships, but placed first in the Internationales Kunstlaufen um den Preis des Wiener Eislaufverein, held in conjunction with that year's Europeans. Then came the Great War.
Ernst served as an aviator during the Great War, reaching the rank of Oberleutnant. He and his brother were aces with the K.u.K. Luftfahrtruppen, flying single-seat biplane aircraft in missions over Europe. Ernst managed to escape the War relatively unscathed, but Josef died of his injuries when his plane crashed during an air battle in the Southern Theater Of War in August of 1918. That same year, he mourned the loss of his beloved grandmother, the family matriarch.
Ernst was one of a small handful of Austrian figure skaters who achieved success internationally in the pre-war years and returned to competition when ISU Championships resumed in 1922. He earned the bronze medal at that year's European Championships, defeating the reigning Olympic Bronze Medallist Martin Stixrud in the process. In 1923, he placed fourth at the World Championships in Vienna. In 1924, he earned the bronze medal at the World Championships in Manchester, defeating British Champion Jack Ferguson Page in his home city. Ernst earned fourth-place finishes at his two final ISU Championships, the 1925 World Championships and 1927 European Championships, reclaimed the Internationales Kunstlaufen um den Preis des Wiener Eislaufverein and won two Austrian senior men's titles during this period. Had other pre-war Champions like Fritz Kachler and Gösta Sandahl not also staged post-war comebacks, his successes might have been even greater.
Throughout his competitive career, Ernst was regarded as being competent though at times shaky at figures and having smaller tracings than some of his competitors. He was far stronger at free skating, though, as one writer from the "Wiener Montagblatt" put it, "His presentation and attitude left something to be desired." He was second in free skating at the 1914 World Championships and two judges had him first in free skating at the 1922 European Championships and 1923 World Championships. His greatest contribution to the sport was arguably his invention of the one-foot Axel, later popularized by Cecilia Colledge in the thirties. For many years, it was known in Austria as the Oppacher jump.
In the early thirties, Ernst moved to Düsseldorf, Germany. In December of 1934, he married his wife Margarete and in 1940, he became an authorized officer and power of attorney for Böhler & Co Aktiengesellschaft. In the fifties, he served as a director of the company's stainless steel mill in Kapfenburg. Little is known about his later life and his successes in the skating world have gone largely unnoticed for decades.
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