Heinz Kluetmeier, Inventive Sports Photographer, Dies at 82

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Heinz Kluetmeier, Inventive Sports Photographer, Dies at 82

His work for Sports Illustrated included the renowned cover photo of the United States men’s hockey team celebrating their upset win at the 1980 Winter Olympics.


In 1980, Heinz Kluetmeier found the perfect angle at the Lake Placid Olympic Center to chronicle the underdog U.S. hockey team’s 4-3 semifinal victory over the Soviet squad. His photograph ran on the cover of Sports Illustrated without any explanatory headline or caption. Heinz Kluetmeier/Sports Illustrated

By Richard Sandomir
Published Jan. 19, 2025
Updated Jan. 21, 2025, 2:38 p.m. ET

Heinz Kluetmeier, a prominent photographer for Sports Illustrated who captured the exultation of the United States men’s Olympic hockey team when it upset the Soviet Union at the 1980 Winter Games and the swimmer Michael Phelps’s minuscule margin of victory in a gold medal race at the 2008 Summer Olympics, died on Tuesday at his home in Manhattan. He was 82. ... His daughter Jessica Kluetmeier said the cause was complications of Parkinson’s disease.

For decades, even as television imagery grew more influential, Sports Illustrated’s star photographers, including Mr. Kluetmeier, Neil Leifer and Walter Iooss Jr., provided sports fans with weekly doses of sharp-eyed action shots and portraits. ... “Heinz wanted to bring people to a place or an angle they had never seen before,” said Marguerite Schropp Lucarelli, the magazine’s director of photography. “He also had a unique ability to connect with athletes.”

On Feb. 22, 1980, Mr. Kluetmeier found the perfect angle at the Lake Placid Olympic Center to chronicle the underdog U.S. hockey team’s 4-3 semifinal victory over the Soviet squad. (In their next game, the Americans beat Finland for the gold medal.) ... His photograph — which showed players holding their sticks in the air and reveling on the ice — ran on the cover of Sports Illustrated without any explanatory headline or caption, a rarity in the magazine’s history.

“I think that’s one of the pictures that people remember that I’ve taken,” Mr. Kluetmeier told the sports website of Dartmouth College, his alma mater, in 2007. “It’s the moment that is compelling.”

{snip}


At the 2008 Summer Olympics, Mr. Kluetmeier used a tethered underwater camera system to show conclusively that Michael Phelps, left, beat Milorad Cavic of Serbia by a hundredth of a second in the 100-meter butterfly final. Heinz Kluetmeier/Sports Illustrated

{snip}


Mr. Kluetmeier in an undated photo. As a Sports Illustrated’s staff photographer from 1979 to 2009, he covered nearly every sport and many Olympics. courtesy Heinz Kluetmeier

{snip}


In 2011, Mr. Kluetmeier found the right lighting to create a tightly framed picture of the New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez as he was being tackled by the New York Jets linebacker David Harris. Heinz Kluetmeier/Sports Illustrated

{snip}


In 2005, Mr. Kluetmeier turned the pool in which Michael Phelps was training as a student at the University of Michigan into a dorm room. “Phelps thought it was hilarious,” Mr. Kluetmeier’s longtime assistant said. Heinz Kluetmeier/Sports Illustrated

{snip}

A correction was made on Jan. 21, 2025: An earlier version of this obituary misspelled the given name of one of Mr. Kluetmeier’s daughters. She is Erika Kluetmeier, not Erica.

When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at [e-mail] more

Richard Sandomir, an obituaries reporter, has been writing for The Times for more than three decades. More about Richard Sandomir

A version of this article appears in print on Jan. 21, 2025, Section B, Page 12 of the New York edition with the headline: Heinz Kluetmeier, 82, Who Captured Peak Sports Photography That Said It All. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

[SheltieLover]

1. RIP!