- published: 10 Oct 2011
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Michael ("Mike") Schmid (born 18 March 1984) is a Swiss freestyle skier who specializes in the skicross discipline. He is the inaugural Olympic champion in the event.
He made his World Cup debut in January 2004 in Laax, and finished among the top thirty for the first time one year later, with a 22nd place in Pozza di Fassa. Then, two tenth places and a thirteenth place followed before the end of the season. He also finished sixth at the 2005 World Championships in Ruka. In the 2005–06 season he finished eighth three times, and took his first podium with a second place in Kreischberg in January. In the seasons 2006–07 and 2007–08 he finished consistently among the top ten in the World Cup, recording one more second place, and finished tenth at the 2007 World Championships in Madonna di Campiglio. In January 2009, he won a World Cup race for the first time, in St. Johann in Tirol.
Schmid won the gold medal at the 2010 Winter Olympics, after achieving the best time in qualification and dominating all four final runs.
Kurt Hermann Eduard Karl Julius Schwitters (20 June 1887 – 8 January 1948) was a German painter who was born in Hanover, Germany.
Schwitters worked in several genres and media, including Dada, Constructivism, Surrealism, poetry, sound, painting, sculpture, graphic design, typography and what came to be known as installation art. He is most famous for his collages, called Merz Pictures.
Kurt Schwitters was born on 20 June 1887, at No.2 Rumannstraße, Hanover, the only child of Edward Schwitters and his wife Henriette (née Beckemeyer). His parents were proprietors of a ladies' clothes shop. They sold the business in 1898, using the money to buy five properties in Hanover which they rented out, allowing the family to live off the income for the rest of Schwitter's life in Germany. In 1901 the family moved to Waldstraße (later Waldhausenstraße) 5, future site of the Merzbau. The same year, Schwitters suffered his first epileptic seizure, a condition that would exempt him from military service in World War I until the last stages of the conflict, when conscription began to be applied to a far wider section of the population.