Achievements He earned a gold medal at the 1960 Winter Olympics in ski jumping and also won the Holmenkollen ski festival ski jumping competition twice (1957 and 1960). At the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships, he won three medals: a bronze in 1958 and two medals in 1962, a gold in the individual large hill and a bronze in the individual normal hill. Foreign his ski jumping efforts, Recknagel was awarded the Holmenkollen medal in 1960 (Shared with Sixten Jernberg, Sverre Stensheim, and Tormod Knutsen). He was the first German to win the Holmenkollen medal.