Heinz Kluetmeier was once asked by a Sports Illustrated staffer to name the most memorable Olympic photo he shot.
That staffer was me.
The famed sports photographer did not hesitate.
“I would have to say the Olympic hockey photo from Lake Placid,” he said. “That’s the only cover we ever ran without cover language. It didn’t need it.”
That photo landed on the cover of SI on March 3, 1980, the definitive image of the definitive sporting moment for Americans of the 20th century — the United States hockey team’s celebration after its improbable victory over the Soviet Union at the Lake Placid Olympics.
One of the photos Kluetmeier took of the celebrating Americans. (Photo: Heinz Kluetmeier / Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)
Kluetmeier, born in Berlin but schooled in the U.S., was hired by Time Inc. in 1969 to work as a photographer for Life and Sports Illustrated. His career involved shooting more than 100 Sports Illustrated covers, including memorable photos of Mark Spitz and Michael Phelps.
Earlier Tuesday, he passed away at the age of 82 due to complications with Parkinson’s disease and a stroke. SI’s Jon Wertheim penned a lovely obit, saying Kluetmeier “didn’t take photos, he gave photos.”
“Heinz Kluetmeier was one of the greatest photographers of our time,” said his former SI colleague Robert Beck in an Instagram post. “He was technically years ahead of his peers but he also understood that it was the emotions of the subjects he captured that really made his photography stand out.
“If you have ever set up a remote camera, you owe Heinz. If you ever set up a camera in the pool at the Olympics (or anywhere else), you owe Heinz. Looking for different angles, you owe Heinz. I could go on and on. He wanted to see great pictures out of you but he also appreciated a solid work ethic.”
Kluetmeier could shoot anything, but he truly was an Olympics junkie. He was a pioneer for underwater sports photography and took incredible photos of Phelps swimming underwater, frame by frame, at the 2008 Beijing Games.
“I have always been interested in underwater photography and the magazine has a history of trying something different and being ahead of the curve,” Kluetmeier said in 2008. “Often what happens is we do it, it gets into the magazine, and the next year a whole bunch of people who saw it in the magazine and say, ‘Let’s try that.’ The first time I got permission to put a camera underwater was Barcelona after months of negotiating. I had surreptitiously snuck the camera underwater the year before at the swimming world championships.
“One of the technical committee members said I could put it in the pool and if someone did not like it, they would pull it out before the race. The guy standing by who was going to help me pull it out of the pool in Perth, Australia, was Mel Stewart, the then-world champion and record holder in the 200 butterfly. So in his honor, I threw a camera in the pool for his race in Barcelona. We had a fish eye lens and the water was so smooth during the first lap of his swim, you could read the scoreboard through the water up above him. When we were putting the camera in, I remember an armed guard said, ‘You cannot put this camera in. It might be a bomb.’ I finally said to the pool director: I will wear a swimming suit to the pool and if there is a problem, I will jump in and pull it out. There was no problem and it ran in the magazine.
“Today, more and more people want to do it, so you almost have to ration the space in the bottom of the pool. It is very valuable real estate but guys want to get stroke shots and pretty pictures.”
(Photo: Heinz Kluetmeier / Sports Illustrated via Getty Image)
