1960s

Translated from the French by D. Wright Pryce

Published posthumously, with the kind permission of Patrick Lang

Editor’s Note: Today’s World Cup of Alpine Skiing is so firmly in the grasp of the International Ski Federation (FIS) administration and of the national ski federations that it has almost been forgotten that the world-wide, season-long competition was not an FIS initiative, but one spearheaded by the press. The actual individual initiator was the dean of Europe’s ski writers, the late Serge Lang, a Swiss who lived partly in France, and wrote for the Paris-based sports daily, L’Equipe, as well as for German and Italian newspapers. Shortly before his death in 1999, Lang wrote a history of how the World Cup was launched more than 40 years ago.  

 

The World Cup was to be brought into being by a near-perfect conjunction of events and by the support of a handful of important people.

The very name chosen to designate it was of the utmost importance. World Cup, Coupe du Monde, Weltcup, Coppa del Mondo, echoed like a fanfare in all the languages of the world.  Other than in soccer, there were no other World Cups at the time. And soccer's international trophy had only been dubbed the World Cup by the British that same year. Today, of course, there are a hundred-odd world cups, in everything from sailing to cycling, fencing to volleyball, rugby to bob-sledding. In skiing alone—including jumping, cross-country, freestyle - there are half dozen World Cups, all inspired by the name and, sometimes, by the spirit and the formula of the alpine skiing World Cup, which my colleagues and I created.

The World Cup was not only a journalistic creation, a fact that I can confirm, having been a journalist since 1940. It was an event devised with the media in mind—not just the mass-circulation newspapers and the sporting press, but also radio and especially television. Audiences, viewers, readers and sponsors have proven this to be right. The World Cup has become a massive world-wide attraction.

In the early days, however, only three journalists were prepared to put their professional weight behind the project. Those three were: Michel Clare of L'Equipe, the famous French sports paper ; John Fry, then editor-in-chief of Ski Magazine in New York; and Austria's Kurt Bernegger, a reporter for Salzburger Nachrichten, later with Austrian television and to my mind the most far-sighted commentator of that era.

And what of all the other sportswriters and broadcasters? While they were not really against the World Cup, neither were they ready to support it. Later I was to read with great interest that a good many of them had, for a long time, imagined a similar ranking system. Well, such a system was not unique. Other sports had adopted a point-based ranking system for some time. The Desgrange-Colombo Challenge and the Prestige Pernod in cycling, and the Golden Ski of L'Equipe, awarded ten years earlier, all used similar systems.

The original World Cup of alpine skiing, in fact, borrowed its format from sailing. It followed a system of counting at the beginning of the season a limited number (best three) of finishes from each discipline towards the overall ranking.

"That way, our skiers won't feel obliged to participate in every race," said French team coach Honore Bonnet. He was wrong, as we were all to realize very soon, having ignored the racers' strategic sense of what was needed to win. Even after having accumulated their maximum number of points in any given event, they still entered races in order to deny rivals the chance to score more and get closer to them.

It Began at the Hahnenkamm

The story of the World Cup began late one January morning in 1966, less than a hundred meters from the "Hinterseer Farm," halfway down Kitzbühel's Hahnenkamm famous downhill course. Struck by sudden inspiration, I turned to French Team Director Honoré Bonnet and US coach Bob Beattie, who, like me, were there to watch the practice runs.

"What we are going to do," I said, "Is...to hold a World Cup." I was speaking in English for the benefit of Bob Beattie, so "World Cup" was the actual phrase I used. At that point Beattie was defending the idea of holding the FIS World Championships annually. (Ed. Note: The FIS World Championships were, and still are, held every second year.)

In a way, of course, I can take no great credit for coining the name World Cup. For several weeks the British had been using the term to describe soccer's world championship being played in England that summer of 1966. In Portillo, Chile, at the 1966 World Alpine Ski Championships, I remember standing on the edge of the downhill course at 10 a.m. listening to the soccer final between England and West-Germany at Wembley.

It was at Portillo that skiing’s World Cup was effectively born, thanks to Bonnet, Beattie and Dr Sepp Sulzberger, a lawyer who was in overall charge of the Austrian Alpine ski team. But it was Marc Hodler, President of the International Ski Federation (FIS) since 1951 who had the courage to shoulder the heavy responsibility and declare that the first World Cup would be raced under FIS patronage in the winter of 1967.

MARC HODLER SEALS THE DEAL

I once read that history knows how to choose the men and the women it needs to carry out its destiny. Perhaps it is true. After all, I held no mandate in any ski federation. The only official title I had was president of the International Association of Ski Journalists. But this was enough to enable me to have official-and usually friendly - relationships with the executives of the various ski federations, the FIS and, more importantly, its president.

Even though Hodler had long been enthusiastic about such a project, nothing was certain in Portillo. Even after long days and nights of negotiations with my three partners and with the project finally ready, Bob Beattie doubted that we would get FIS approval. For a week, Beattie listed the possible objections, even though he was one of the greatest supporters of the World Cup idea. One evening he got up from the table, pointed to a piece of paper on which we had noted the various points of our agreement—the dates of the first schedule, the rules and the points system and so on—and said : " Marc Hodler will never accept this proposal. "

Fortunately this was a gross misreading of Marc Hodler, of his sportsmanship, enthusiasm, goodwill and his long range vision. The next day, around noon, and in the same bar where, with the aid of much "Pisco" and coffee , we'd just spent a good part of our Chilean nights, Marc Hodler studied the proposal for a few minutes then asked simply : "What time do you want me in the Press Room to announce the creation of this World Cup?"

A NEW ERA BEGINS

And so, in the heart of the Andes, thousands of miles from the Alps, the old calendar of ski racing died on August 11, 1966. A new era, whose outlines we could not yet make out, was about to begin.

At the time, international ski racing was in the doldrums - except for its natural peaks, the Olympic Games and the World Championships. Meanwhile, a new medium had arisen. The growth of television highlighted the need for a change in the ski racing’s format.

TV had already begun to make its presence felt in the skiing world, making stars out of what had formerly been ski racing champions on paper. Racers likes Jean Claude Killy, Karl Schranz and Leo Lacroix clamored for TV attention. International skiing was desperately in need of a new showcase.

Bonnet and Beattie had come up with the idea of an Alpine Countries Cup. The concept played down individual victories and elevated nation-by-nation racing. It was an excellent idea in itself, but unlikely to generate mass popular interest. Ski racing is a sport of individuals, not a team game. And TV wanted to concentrate on stars. Nevertheless, the national team competition idea persisted. The mid-March 1965 “World Series of Skiing” at Vail was restricted to nations – France, Austria and the U.S. -- whose athletes had won medals at the Innsbruck Olympic Games the year before.  Excluded were the Canadians and the Swiss. They were snubbed. And, in the view of some people, unfairly.

Meanwhile, something else happened in 1965. During the summer, in the heart of Roubaix, France, a dense crowd had gathered to witness the morning start of one of the stages of bicycling’s Tour de France. In the confusion, Jacques Goddet—chief editor of l'Equipe (the French daily sports newspaper) and head of the Tour de France itself - strode towards me in pressed khaki pants, like a central-casting British officer.

"Hello Serge" he said. "Listen, dear friend, no-one can make head nor tail of this ski racing business anymore. One day Killy is winning, the next it's Schranz, Marielle or Billy, Dick or Harry. Come on, get me something together. A challenge to decide the winner, a gimmick or an event like the Super Prestige Pernod in cycling. Fix it with Albert de Wetter and get me an outline before the end of the Tour de France" At that time, De Wetter, a noted journalist, was one of L'Equipe's two representatives in the Publicis group, the main advertising agency of this important sports paper.

Over an awful cacophony of car horns, De Wetter shouted at me: "I've found a client who wants to spend a quarter of a million to link his logo with skiing and snow—it's Evian mineral water. You get the picture—drink Evian and feel like you're in the French Alps. Set up a challenge with a ranking over a number of races...See you at Bordeaux."

On the eve of our next meeting, I drafted my project. There was to be a point system: in each race—25 points for the winner, 20 for the second, 15 for the third and so on, down to one point for a tenth place finish. There would be a dozen races. Everything was to begin at Hindelang in the western part of the Bavarian Alps and to end, at the beginning of March, in Muerren with the Arlberg Kandahar where all the points would be added up. It was a simple idea and, including the schedule, it fitted on two-double spaced pages.

I gave my outline to De Wetter the night of the Bordeaux stage of the Tour de France. It did not seem to interest him as much as it had a few days earlier in Roubaix. The first races were won by Karl Schranz and Marielle Goitschel,  yet the season-long competition was being named "Challenge de l'Equipe," and not "Challenge Evian." Because of a banal misunderstanding, the original sponsorship agreement had never been completed.

The "Challenge de L'Equipe" survived one year. A wasted year? Hardly. That season was a great prelude to the World Cup. After Billy Kidd, who led the Challenge after his slalom victory at Hindelang, injured himself during the Hahnenkamm slalom at Kitzbühel, no-one talked anything but the World Cup,  the name that had struck a chord a stone's throw from Hinterseer's farm.

Once Evian learned that what was at stake was no longer a challenge but an authentic World Cup under the aegis of the FIS, the mineral water company wanted to share it. So it happened that the first World Cup was graced by the  famous crystal globes introduced by Evian in 1968.

WITHOUT PORTILLO, IT MIGHT NOT HAVE HAPPENED

I have good reasons to believe that had the 1966 World Championships—then held every four years—taken place anywhere else but Portillo, Chile, in the Southern hemisphere far away from the Alps, the World Cup would never seen the light of the day. The Southern Cross was our lucky stars. If the World Championships had been awarded to a more traditional European venue - Davos, Garmisch or Kitzbühel for instance - our proposal for a World Cup - which would run throughout the season from country to country - would not have overcome the opposition of the conservative voices in skiing. But in Portillo, they were of no consequence. The potential political opponents did not come.

The move to Portillo was itself revolutionary. Think of it...what kind of idea was it, to go and hold world skiing championships in midsummer,  in a distant part of the globe, let alone to discuss a new idea for a World Cup? Anyway, at the crucial moment, the stick-in-the-muds were not there to bray that a World Cup would serve no purpose and would only cause additional problems. Of course, they made their positions known, but much later - too late, once everything had begun.

The whole set-up in Portillo was of vital importance too. The small resort was situated a few kilometers from the Chilean-Argentine border, perched at nearly 9,000 feet. All the skiers and officials had to live together in a single hotel offering only 100-odd beds. This excluded battalions of unwelcome visitors. Everything had to happen either in the hotel or on the slopes. While the Andes offered an admirable diversity of skiing, in the hotel everything was confined to dining room bar and the basement nightclub. It was in that bar, which was deserted after dinner, that Bonnet, Beattie, Sulzberger and I sat day in, day out discussing the new season-long, annual competition.

While the racers' attention was naturally fixed on the events of the World Championships, most of them, including Jean Claude Killy, greeted the idea of the World Cup with enthusiasm.

Yet a few months later, as the opening date of the first World Cup season of 1967 approached, I wondered. How would it be greeted by the countries with long skiing traditions, whose races were already classic events long before the World Cup? I need not have worried. The World Cup not only strengthened all the classic races, but it proved to be crucial in the development of more races and resorts.

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS by John Fry

The first World Cup season of 1967 comprised seven slaloms, five giant slaloms and five downhills. A racer’s points were derived from his or her three best results in each discipline. It was a little bit like draw poker, where you discard an inferior card and hope to replace it with a better one. If you placed well in a race, the points replaced a previous lesser result. You could earn a maximum of 75 points for the season in each of the three disciplines, but as you got closer to attaining 75 points in giant slalom, for example, point gains diminished. You needed to turn to downhill and slalom to keep up in the overall standings.

In retrospect, the original World Cup formula—discarded after only a few seasons—was a good system. It truly rewarded all-round competitors. It involved only 17 races, compared with the bloated total of 30 or more created in later years—not by the press, but by ski politicians seeking to appease resorts and national federations.

Beginning in the 1970s, FIS officials fought against specialization in alpine skiing, by frequently changing the World Cup point formula. The battle to prevent technical specialists from winning the overall title was understandable, but  juggling the point formula removed any chance of comparing the performances of racers from year to year. In my judgment, it impoverished the sport’s history. Fans and journalists today cannot rate, for example, Hermann Maier’s 1998 World Cup points against Jean-Claude Killy’s or Ingemar Stenmark’s winning records.

As for the first World Cup season, it culminated in March,1967 when a huge entourage of racers, coaches, officials, press and their mountain of luggage and skis arrived in the United States for the first North American World Cup races at Cannon Mountain. Before the racers came to Cannon, we published a profile of Killy by Lang in SKI Magazine.  I created a program for the event, with an explanation of how the new winter-long circuit worked. It appeared as an insert in SKI Magazine, reaching 100,000 readers. As many as 15,000 spectators showed up. Killy won all three races. Sports Illustrated featured him on its cover. At the season-ending final ceremony at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, FIS President Marc Hodler presented Killy and Nancy Greene with Evian’s trophies.

The World Cup had proved a huge success! Serge Lang’s dream came true.

 

HOW THE NATIONS CUP STARTED

By John Fry

Serge Lang, en route from the FIS World Championships at Portillo to his home in Switzerland, visited me in my office in Manhattan on a hot August day in 1966.

“SKI Magazine should be involved in the new World Cup,” said Lang.

I gave Lang the usual answer to all proposals brought to the magazine at the time. “We don’t have any money.”

“That’s okay,” he responded. “Evian (the bottled water company) pays for everything. But we want American press exposure. Why don’t you present a trophy?”

“For what?”

“Come up with an idea,” said Lang.

“Right now, I don’t have an idea.”

“Fine, let’s go to lunch. I know a very good Italian restaurant on Madeeson Avenue.”

Extended, multi-course meals, laced with several bottles of vin rouge, were Lang’s way of finding solutions, as I came to learn. The Madeeson Avenue lunch produced no ideas, but waking the next morning, I came up with one. Why not group the points accumulated by each nation’s racers and create a team competition—albeit a statistical one? The team whose racers aggregated the most points by the end of the season would win a trophy, called The Nations Cup. Year by year, the standings would compare how the world’s alpine skiing nations rank in strength.

That morning, before Lang flew back to Europe, he dropped by my office, where I explained my concept to him. “And SKI Magazine will present the trophy,” I added, “not to an athlete, but to the head national coach, as a means of recognizing the role played by the trainers.”

“It’s good,” he said quietly. . .so quietly that I couldn’t tell if he was unenthusiastic, or sorry The Nations Cup wasn’t his own idea. “It’s good,” he repeated. We shook hands.

 
Although it was an American idea, the Nations Cup has never been won by the U.S. Ski Team. The Team did, however, win the women’s category in 1982; its best overall showing, second-place, was in 2006. In 42 winters so far, only Austria, Switzerland and France have won the Nations Cup.

NASTAR, the world's largest recreational racing program, began 50 years ago when this editor wanted to introduce the equivalent of golf's par to the sport of skiing.

The environment for people learning to ski has varied little over the years. Ungainly tip-crossing neophytes are herded into classes of eight to a dozen students. After a day, or perhaps five days, they emerge skilled enough to achieve what they want: to descend the mountain on pleasant trails, while enjoying the scenery and the company of friends. 

Most recreational skiers are like golfers who play a round without keeping score, or tennis players happily lobbing the ball back and forth across the net.

Beginning as editor-in-chief of SKI Magazine in the spring of 1964, I worked across the hall from the editorial office of GOLF Magazine, whose editorial director I would become five years later. GOLF's editors relied heavily on supplying readers with tips to lower their handicaps. Golfers could relate their scores to a PGA player's sub-par round, or their own putting to Arnold Palmer's challenge of sinking a 10-footer. How great it would be, I thought, if I could ratchet up SKI's newsstand sales using the same appeal! How great it would be if it were to become a goal of ski instruction!

To read the rest of this story, see the January-February 2018 issue of Skiing History magazine. To read the digital edition online, you must be a member of ISHA. Not a member? Join today!

 

NASTAR, the world’s largest recreational racing program, began 50 years ago when this editor wanted to introduce the equivalent of golf’s par to the sport of skiing.

 

By John Fry

The environment for people learning to ski has varied little over the years. Ungainly tip-crossing neophytes are herded into classes of eight to a dozen students. After a day, or perhaps five days, they emerge skilled enough to achieve what they want: to descend the mountain on pleasant trails, while enjoying the scenery and the company of friends. 

Most recreational skiers are like golfers who play a round without keeping score, or tennis players happily lobbing the ball back and forth across the net. 

Beginning as editor-in-chief of SKI Magazine in the spring of 1964, I worked across the hall from the editorial office of GOLF Magazine, whose editorial director I would become five years later. GOLF’s editors relied heavily on supplying readers with tips to lower their handicaps. Golfers could relate their scores to a PGA player’s sub-par round, or their own putting to Arnold Palmer’s challenge of sinking a 10-footer. How great it would be, I thought, if I could ratchet up SKI’s newsstand sales using the same appeal! How great it would be if it were to become a goal of ski instruction!

At the time, however, it wasn’t an idea especially appealing to the Professional Ski Instructors of America. PSIA’s Official American Ski Technique (later renamed American Teaching Method or ATM) didn’t much resemble what good skiers were doing. They were making stepped turns, using split rotation, and carving on fiberglass skis. Many beginners were learning on short skis with the new Graduated Length Method (GLM). Progressive instructors were looking ahead, but the American Ski Technique was still living in its Austrian past.

Even the name “American” looked outdated. Nationalistic differences in technique were rapidly dying. I set up a cover photo, in which three skiers—Austrian gold medalist Pepi Stiegler, French pro champion Adrien Duvillard, and Canada’s Ernie McCulloch—were seen together in a slalom flush. All three made roughly the same turn. It didn’t look much like the final form of PSIA’s American Ski Technique. 

My thinking was heavily influenced too when in 1967 I arranged for Georges Joubert’s and Jean Vuarnet’s bestselling Comment Se Perfectionner à Ski to be published in English as How to Ski the New French Way. The principal way for skiers to advance their technique, the authors believed, was to mimic the actions of champion racers.

SKI’s racing editor Tom Corcoran wrote a column condemning the gulf between racing and what recreational skiers were being taught. He lauded an innovation at Sun Valley. The resort had cordoned off a special slope, not too steep, dedicated to timing recreational skiers as they made runs through easy open gates. It was the equivalent in golf of a Par-3 course. Mont Tremblant Ski School director Ernie McCulloch also made pupils learn how to turn through gates. 

Resorts like Sun Valley and Tremblant staged standard races for guests. Entrants who ran the course within a set time limit received a shoulder patch, and possibly a gold, silver or a bronze pin. The prestigious standard races were not necessarily easy—they could be long and challenging. You could compare yourself to others who’d been in the race, but not directly to someone who wasn’t in it. Your rating was only good for the day of the competition. By contrast, a consistent 10-handicap golfer knows that on any day, on any course, he’s likely to play 10 strokes better than a 20-handicapper.  

THE SCORELESS SPORT

In October of 1967 I wrote to complain that skiing was virtually a Scoreless Sport, the title I used for my editor’s column in SKI Magazine. I spent much of the subsequent winter asking race officials and instructors how the equivalent of golf’s handicap could be created for skiers. 

One weekend at Mt. Snow in Vermont the ski school director, a French Canadian, told me about France’s Ecole de Ski Nationale Chamois program. For certification, an instructor had to perform well enough in the Ecole’s annual Challenge, a classic slalom course with hairpins and flushes, to earn a silver medal—that is, be less than 25 percent behind the time recorded by the fastest instructor. Back at his home area, the certified instructor could set the pace for local participants in a Chamois race—a single run slalom. Gold, silver and bronze were awarded according to the percentage the skier’s time lagged behind the pacesetter’s.

It didn’t take long for the dim bulb in my cerebrum to light up: Use time percentages, not raw times, to rate skier performance. And do it, not with a difficult slalom, but rather by offering a simple open-gate setting on intermediate terrain, anticipated by Corcoran. (In 1972, France’s National Ski School—after three or four years of experimentation—introduced the Flèche, a separate, easier test than Chamois—an open-gated giant slalom similar to a NASTAR course.) 

Here was an unwitting, unconscious, unintended collaboration between a French program, little known in North America, and an American program that would blossom into something much bigger, imitated in other countries, enabling tens of thousands of recreational skiers to measure their ability, and glimpse into what it might feel like to be racing in the Olympics. 

RACE RATINGS VALID ANYWHERE, ANY TIME

In France a skier participating in Chamois was rated against the local pacesetter’s time, which was not corrected to account for the percentage by which the instructor had lagged behind the fastest time when he’d competed against other instructors. Adjusting the local pacesetter’s time so there’d be a national standard was a vision I had for NASTAR.  (Twenty years later, in 1987–88, France adopted the NASTAR principle of speeding up the local pacesetter’s time to create a single standard for a Chamois rating.)   

In my mind, the fastest time should be that of a top racer on the U.S. Ski Team. It would work as follows, I imagined. If pacesetter Klaus at Mount Snow was originally three percent slower than the nation’s fastest racer, and a Mount Snow guest was 20 percent slower than Klaus, then he or she would be about 23 percent slower than America’s fastest skier would have been if he’d skied the Mt. Snow course that day. Presto! The skier would have a 23 handicap. The sport of skiing could enjoy the equivalent of golf’s par! A skier would know that on any slope anywhere, through a couple of dozen gates, on a surface that could be sticky or icy, it didn’t matter, the rating would be valid. If he or she had a 23 NASTAR handicap, he was seven percentage points better than someone with a 30 rating.

The possibilities seemed limitless. You could make the results of races around the country equivalent to one another. You could take two equally rated skiers and put them in an exciting head-to-head race. Or you could handicap two unequal racers, delay the start of the better skier, and maximize their chances of reaching the finish line at the same time, making it appear to be an exciting race. On a 300-foot-vertical Michigan hill, you could have a competitive experience equivalent to one at a Rocky Mountain resort. 

What I had in mind was a national standard race. I gave it the acronym NASTAR.

The NASTAR idea needed an infusion of money to become a reality, and so SKI Magazine flew me to Chicago to meet with a potential sponsor, the now-defunct Schlitz brewery. I explained the concept to them. The Schlitz guys liked it. 

“The program’s called NASTAR,” I explained. 

“No, no. It’s got to be the Schlitz Open,” the ad agency guy shot back. 

Returning home, I told my wife, who is German, that the meeting had gone well, but that we were stuck on the name. 

“What is it?” she asked. 

“The Schlitz Open,” I replied. She shrieked with laughter.

“What are you laughing about?”

“Schlitz is our word for the fly on a man’s pants!” 

The next day, I phoned the advertising agency in Chicago and told them the news. Within hours, I received a return call informing me that Schlitz had agreed to the name NASTAR. 

JIMMIE HEUGA

In December 1968, with Tom Corcoran’s indispensable help, the pacesetting trials took place at his new Waterville Valley resort in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. For the first time, an idea that had existed only on paper became a physical reality. 

Jimmie Heuga clocked the fastest times, earning the title of national pacesetter. Charlie Gibson, a tall, spare, laconic mathematics whiz from IBM, who would later become president of the U.S. Ski Association, developed statistical tables, by which local ski areas could compute the handicap ratings of recreational skiers. Gloria Chadwick, a perpetually cheerful, obsessively organized New Englander, quit her job running the U.S. Ski Association in order to manage NASTAR.

In the winter months of 1969, NASTAR’s first season, 2,500 recreational skiers competed at eight areas across the country—from Mt. Snow in Vermont to Alpental in Washington, and at Vail, where the charismatic Swiss champion Roger Staub had become ski school director. 

The standard for winning gold, silver and bronze pins was different for men and women. Two winters later, the standards for medal winning began to take age into account as well. Response was upbeat. The well-known New York Times ski columnist Mike Strauss said that “NASTAR is the best thing to happen to skiing since the introduction of the rope tow.” 

SANDBAGGING ON SKIS?

At the end of the first season, Schlitz flew 39 successful NASTAR medalists to a final race at Heavenly Valley, California. They raced head-to-head, starting with times adjusted by their handicaps. It didn’t occur to me that competitors might contrive to inflate their handicaps—the practice known as sandbagging in golf. The Minneapolis Star’s ski columnist Ralph Thornton wrote a column suggesting the possibility that some racers had sandbagged, cheating Midwest skiers of victory. 

Well, I thought, if the race was worth cheating at, NASTAR is clearly a success. 

How to enhance NASTAR’s popularity? One possibility was to incorporate the program into ski schools, as an objective way for instructors to measure the progress of students. I proposed the idea to the Professional Ski Instructors of America. 

Many people, I argued, are able to ski proficiently, even elegantly, when they’re able to choose anywhere to make a turn. The instructor observes, applauds the student’s form, and advances him to a higher class. But what about making a must-do turn, at high speed, to avoid a tree? What about being forced to enter a gate at the right point in a race? It’s far more difficult to turn at a given spot. The skier must master skills like gliding, skidding, drifting, pivoting, rebounding, absorption and stepping, as well as carving, in order to get specifically from Point A to Point B. Instructors could use NASTAR to monitor people’s advancing skill. The skier’s handicap would become the measure of his progress in taking lessons. 

Deficient in powers of persuasion and lacking in political skill, I failed to convince anyone at PSIA, except notably Willy Schaeffler, that the organization, already famously resistant to innovation, should get behind NASTAR. 

My other hope was to interest the U.S. Ski Team. By linking the national handicap to the speed of the country’s fastest skiers, NASTAR could serve as a grassroots system to identify young talent for future national teams.

MEETING IN A MANHATTAN STEAM ROOM

How to persuade the U.S. Ski Team to supply pacesetters? It wouldn’t be easy. Alpine director Bob Beattie preferred to exert control over programs involving the Team. I thought I might have a better chance of gaining Beattie’s support if I could enlist the persuasive Corcoran to talk to him. 

One day, when I determined that both Corcoran and the itinerant Beattie would be in New York City, I arranged for us to meet at the New York Athletic Club on Central Park South. When Corcoran and I arrived in the club’s lobby, we learned that Beattie was in the steam room. We were told to meet him there. 

Upstairs in the locker room, we stripped. Groping our way into the hot mist of the steam room, we found the perspiring coach. Inside the foggy chamber, Corcoran attempted to convince Beattie of the benefits of a union with NASTAR. It would make the Ski Team visible on the slopes and in the magazine. By tying the times of the best U.S. racers to NASTAR ratings, the Ski Team would enter into the daily awareness of recreational skiers. And a fraction of the recreational skier’s entry fee would be donated to the always sagging Ski Team treasury.

Emerging from the heat of the steam room, his face reddened to the color of a scalded beet’s interior, Beattie appeared to me to be unconvinced. What I didn’t know was that the coach himself was concocting in his mind his own five-year, multi-million-dollar plan. Called the Buddy Werner League, it aimed—like Little League baseball—at tapping into 250,000 young athletes, through a program named after the late U.S. racing star. 

BEATTIE REIGNS FOR 30 YEARS 

Although the trip to the steam room had been a failure, Beattie’s view of NASTAR changed a year later. Retired from the Ski Team, the former coach was seeking entrepreneurial opportunities. His search coincided with SKI’s search for a way to keep track of thousands of entries at a rapidly rising number of ski areas wanting to join in hosting the popular new races. 

Off-site computers and software didn’t exist at the time. To pay for the labor-intensive organization, a way had to be found, not only to make ski areas pay, but to extract money from sponsors like Pepsi and Bonne Belle as well as Schlitz. 

Under license from SKI, Beattie took over the operation of the program that he had once spurned. He was the ideal guy to run it. In NASTAR’s second season, the number of participating ski areas grew to thirty-nine. Sponsorships proliferated. Resorts took in money from guests willing to pay to race. Offshoot programs were created—like Pepsi Junior NASTAR and Hi-Star for interscholastic competition.

Fifteen winters later, prodded and promoted by the former Ski Team coach, who was now also pro racing impresario and TV commentator, NASTAR grew to 135 areas, attracting a quarter of a million recreational racers each winter. In Canada Molson’s Beer launched a copycat Molstar program. NASTAR clones sprouted in Scandinavia, Switzerland and Australia.

In conversations in lift lines and in base lodges, I heard the thrilled voices of intermediate skiers who’d raced for the first time in their lives. Excitedly they compared their handicap ratings. Friends, who’d never before skied competitively, told me of butterflies in their stomach as they stood in the NASTAR starting gate. Children boasted about winning a bronze pin. At a NASTAR finals, where recreational racers from 5 to 85 years of age competed, I saw a helmeted 10-year-old boy and his grandfather hugging one another as they rejoiced over their results. 

NASTAR was conceived in the 1960s—the age of Killy, Kidd, Greene and other alpine racing stars. Putting their faces on SKI Magazine’s covers added tens of thousands to newsstand sales. For me, here was material proof of where the interest of readers belonged.  In their desire to learn from racing I was a believer. 

 

John Fry is the author of The Story of Modern Skiing, a history of the revolution in technique, teaching, competition, equipment and resorts that took place after World War II. In 1969 through most of the 1970s, he was editorial director of GOLF Magazine, as well as of SKI. He is indebted to veteran ski moniteurs Gerard Bouvier and J-F Lanvers for obtaining fresh historical information about France’s Chamois and Flèche programs.

Jake Hoeschler of the US Ski Team and University of Colorado, interviewed by ISHA's Seth Masia, on StoryCorps. Recorded by Kat Haber.

A woman world champion and a man before his time. 
By Edith Thys Morgan

Erik Schinegger leads the life of an Austrian world champion skier. The 68-year-old runs a thriving children’s ski school on Simonhöhe, one of the ski hills on which he learned to ski, in the farming community of Agsdorf. Off the beaten track from the celebrated ski areas in the Arlberg and Tyrol, people come to this area in the Carinthian Alps for quiet vacations, in winter to ski, and in summer to relax by the lake. Along with his wife Christa, Schinegger has welcomed them over the years at his two hotels and lakeside restaurant, and is every bit the local celebrity. 

As much as his path—from humble farming roots and homemade barrel-stave skis to athletic greatness—resembles that of other Austrian champions, Schinegger’s story is unique. 

Schinegger’s winning downhill run at the 1966 World Alpine Ski Championships in Portillo was recently memorialized in a film celebrating the 50th anniversary of the event. That downhill title, however, is not listed on the Austrian Ski Team’s own list of achievements, and appears inconsistently in record books. Schinegger’s name populates Ski–DB.com, the comprehensive ski racing results database, but no longer appears on Wikipedia’s page of world ski champions. Instead, the 1966 title is attributed to France’s Marielle Goitschel. Where the name Schinegger does exist in the record books it is as Erika Schinegger, the woman he once was. (To see the Portillo film, go to http://www.skiportillo.com/en/blog/50-year-anniversary-of-portillo-world-champs/. The Schinegger footage begins at 6:16 minutes.)

I first heard of Erik Schinegger on the eve of my first World Championships competition in 1987. Our first stop, before getting credentials for the event, was for gender testing. We looked at our trainer, in equal parts horror and disbelief, and he assured us we would be keeping our clothes on. It would be a simple process of swabbing inside our cheeks for a saliva sample. But why? “Apparently there was an Erika who turned out to be an Erik,” he said. We had the test, and later chuckled that our official “Certificates of Femininity” might come in handy at Ladies Night, if there was ever any question. 

Later that evening I asked Nick Howe, the journalist traveling with us, who had an encyclopedic knowledge of ski racing history, and he confirmed the barest of details about what the Austrian Ski Team referred to quietly, if at all. Erika had been a spirited and well-liked member of the Austrian ski team and in Portillo had won Austria’s only gold medal. In the run-up to the 1968 Olympics it was discovered, through the very same test I’d just had, that she had male chromosomes, and was thus disqualified from the Olympics. She underwent surgeries, and the transition from Erika to Erik apparently had been successful. Erik even attempted to compete on the World Cup as a man, but it didn’t work out. That synopsis left a lot of unanswered questions. A year after that conversation with Howe, in 1988, Schinegger explained much about his ordeal in his book, Mein Sieg Über Mich (My Victory Over Myself). It described in detail the remarkable journey from Erika to Erik, a triumph that was hard-won and painful. 

Schinegger was born on the family farm in Agsdorf, to a mother who looked quizzically at the baby’s genital area and a father who would have preferred a male farm hand to a fourth daughter. The midwife congratulated the couple on their daughter, who grew up as an energetic tomboy. Despite her father’s disdain of athletics, Erika learned to ski by looking at pictures of Austrian greats and walked 14 kilometers to her first ski race at age 12. Starting dead last, in the 314th starting position, she won. She skyrocketed through the ranks first of the provincial and then the national team. In her first World Championships, in Portillo, 19-year-old Erika won the downhill gold. 

Austria embraced the fairytale, celebrating her with an extended nationwide victory tour. Agsdorf showered her with gifts and a hero’s welcome. Schinegger, who was earning success in technical events as well, seemed poised to make a run at her dream of winning three gold medals at the upcoming 1968 Olympics. For Kneissl, the Austrian Ski Team (ÖSV) and the people of Carinthia, Schinegger was a source of pride and economic opportunity.

In the fall of 1967 the fairy tale suddenly unraveled. In order to quell the suspicion that Eastern Bloc male athletes might be competing as women, the International Olympic Committee instituted gender testing for all female athletes prior to the 1968 Olympics. Schinegger and her teammates had the newly implemented saliva tests in Innsbruck as a routine part of their Olympic preparation. Later, while at a training camp in Cervinia, Schinegger was called back to Innsbruck. There she was greeted by a tribunal of six men—physicians and ski officials—who informed her that based on the results of the test she could no longer compete in the Olympics or on the ÖSV. They had prepared a statement for her to sign, announcing her retirement from sport for personal reasons, and strongly encouraged her to disappear—on a trip they would arrange—until it blew over. Bewildered and bereft, she signed the statement, but on the condition that she return to the clinic under an assumed name, for thorough testing. Two weeks later the results were conclusive and devastating, though in retrospect not entirely surprising. Erika was a biological man. 

The urologist presented her with a choice: she could undergo plastic surgery and hormone therapy to continue life as a woman, thereby preserving her athletic career, the gold medal for Austria and the honor of her hometown. “Medicine can make you a woman,” he explained, “but never a real woman.” Alternatively, he continued, she could choose another, more painful option: She could have surgery to release the male sexual organs that had developed internally and become the man she was meant to be. Against the wishes of her parents, the ÖSV and her ski sponsor Kneissl, Schinegger—who had since puberty immersed herself in sport to bury doubts and fears about her sexuality—chose the latter. 

On January 2, 1968, Erika checked into the Innsbruck clinic under a false name, wearing women’s clothing. Over the next six months she endured four painful operations with no support or companionship. Words she uses to describe that time are loneliness, despair, confusion, depression, fear. She studied men’s ski technique on TV and a German etiquette guide to learn proper male behavior. On June 13, 1968, dressed in men’s clothing ordered from a catalog under a cousin’s name, Erik emerged. In a fast new Porsche, he drove away from the hospital and into an uncertain new life. 

Within days, while competing for the first time as a man in a bike race, Erik revealed his transition at a press conference in Klagenfurt. The news stories were sympathetic, but the townspeople and the ÖSV were not. Adulation for Erika turned into embarrassment and shame about Erik. Villagers avoided him, and stared when he sat on the right side of the church—the male side—for the first time. The town of Agsdorf, which had given Erika a leather-bound document availing her of a two-acre plot of land on which to build a pension, reneged on it. The document read “Erika” not “Erik,” they reasoned, so it was no longer valid. 

Of all the pain he endured, however, the worst was not being able to ski race. “It was through skiing that I felt love,” Schinegger explains simply. Only his former coach, Hans Gammon, welcomed him to an ÖSV camp, where the awkwardness with teammates was surmountable, but the hostility from the federation was not. Despite strong results against the likes of a young Franz Klammer, head coach Franz Hoppichler—under the directive of the federation—banned Schinegger, first from training camps and later from all opportunities to advance to the national team. Even after shining in time trials and winning three Europa Cup races, he was disallowed from the national team and blocked from competing for another country. Eventually, at age 21, Schinegger gave up the fight to race. 

He passed his ski school certification in 1973 and took over the Simonhöhe ski school in 1975, the same year he married a pretty young woman named Renate. The couple had a daughter, Claire, in 1978. In 1988, he published his book and publicly gave his gold medal to Marielle Goitschel. In 1996, for the 30^th anniversary of the event, Marielle was also awarded a gold medal by the FIS. She then returned Erik’s medal on a televised show in Paris. He had, it seemed, won his Sieg.

A more complete picture of Schinegger’s ordeal emerges in the 2005 documentary Erik(A), by Kurt Mayer. The film reveals the full extent of Erika’s and Erik’s struggles, through the lens of the people who shaped his story: the hometown boys who marveled at her determination, hard work and physical stamina; the mother who questioned the midwife from the start, but never rocked the boat of success (“you could see it always,” she says); the teammates who joked about her unfeminine hair and gait, and wondered why she never showered with them; the coaches who assumed her physique was a consequence of farm labor; and the medical and sport officials who contend that they denied Erika and Erik a future in skiing for her own protection.

While revisiting the people and places of her past, Schinegger shares her early doubts of her sexuality, and her fears of being a lesbian in a small Catholic town in a small Catholic country. She recalls her resolve to keep her secret hidden, even from herself, by immersing herself in the comfort of sport, the only place where she felt a sense of belonging. The most poignant meeting is between Schinegger and Olga Scarzettini-Pall, Erika’s closest friend on the team who won the 1968 gold medal that might have been Erika’s. Pall admits to being sad at losing her friend Erika—“We had a good time being girls”—and darkens when recalling the way the Austrian team took ski racing from Schinegger.

Fellow athletes, though claiming that they “knew it all along,” nevertheless did not dispute the medal or hold Erik responsible. “When I heard she would be able to have surgery and become a normal man, I was pleased for her,” says Nancy Greene Raine, to whom Schinegger was runner-up for the GS title in 1967.

“I blame the doctors and the ÖSV, not her,” says Marielle Goitschel, whose comment alludes to the question on many minds. How could the ski federation have failed to determine her true gender? Some, including Schinegger, suspect they chose to ignore it to protect the medal. Keeping Erika female was a matter of politics, economics and pride for the Austrian team. Karl Heinz Klee, then president of the ÖSV, maintains they were trying to protect Erika’s best interests by discouraging the “transformation,” which they feared would not be conclusive and would lead to a “miserable existence.” To him Erik quickly replies: “It was not a transformation. It was a correction.” 

Erik(A) explores the complicated personal struggles, as Erik tried to prove his masculinity with a series of “crutches.” First was the Porsche, then his prowess with women. His first wife Renate recalls her husband as unsympathetic and overbearingly macho. His daughter Claire talks about growing up with the feeling that her existence was “living proof of his masculinity.” 

Today, Schinegger’s journey is no longer a source of gossip and notoriety but a commentary on acceptance and understanding. Successive forms of gender verification—physical exams, then chromosome testing, then testosterone testing for “hyperandrogenism” —have been deemed humiliating, socially insensitive and ineffective, particularly in the case of athletes like Schinegger who are “intersex.” (Intersex is a general term used for a variety of conditions in which a person is born with a sexual anatomy that doesn’t fit the typical definitions of female or male.) The International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) ceased all gender testing in 1992 and the International Olympic Committee followed suit by voting to discontinue the practice in 1999. Chromosome testing was last performed at the Atlanta Games in 1996. Gender is determined by a complete physical exam by each team doctor. The IAAF and IOC policies state that to “avoid discrimination, if not eligible for female competition the athlete should be eligible to compete in male competition.” Today, someone in Schinegger’s circumstances would be able to compete.

When Schinegger is brought into discussions on gender issues in sport, as with athletes like Jamaican sprinter Caster Semanya (who was allowed to compete at the Rio Games despite elevated levels of testosterone), he is encouraging but honest about enduring the experience. “It hurts but you get used to it,” Schinegger said in an interview before the Rio Games, adding his opinion that, “People should be able to decide for themselves whether they want to live as a man or a woman, once puberty has begun.”

With his second wife Christa, Schinegger has found “true warmth” and seems at peace with himself. Together they run their inns and in 2015 retired from their restaurant on the Urban See. His celebrity appearances include a 2014 stint on Austria’s Dancing with the Stars. He enjoys spending time with his three grandchildren, and proudly shepherds 3,000 plus kids each year through the Schischule Schinegger. 

Life is good, and yet he still rankles at the treatment from the ÖSV. At the federation’s 100^th anniversary celebration in 2008, the program omitted the year 1966 when listing World Championship medals. “They even didn’t mention the silver and bronze medals of Heidi Zimmermann and Karl Schranz,” says Schinegger, “just so they did not have to mention my name.” In 2016, when Austrian TV wanted to make a documentary about the 1966 World Championships, ÖSV president Peter Schröcksnagel prohibited it. The only apology Schinegger received was from the TV producers. 

Schinegger’s story, however, continues to be told. A movie of his life—in the works ever since two Hollywood screenwriters read John Fry’s 2001 story on him in SKI magazine—will be completed this year. The German/Austrian co-production, directed by Reinhold Bilgeri, is being produced by Wolfgang Santner. “This story, of how he dared to do it, has never been told in a movie…and it needs to be told,” says Santner. 

He is philosophical when taking stock of his celebrity appearances, his ski school, his popularity in France after handing the medal over to Goitschel, the 100,000 copies of his book that have sold, the documentary and the upcoming movie. “Had I been ‘fixed’ at birth I would not have had these opportunities,” he says, reinforcing what has become his life’s motto: Stein sind da, um sie wegzuraumen. Translated literally, the phrase means “rocks are there so we can remove them”—and challenges so we can overcome them. 

 

 

Edith Thys Morgan is a former member of the U.S. Ski Team and frequent contributor to Skiing History. Read her blog at www.racerex.com and see “Foreign Relations,” her article on international ski racers competing for American colleges, on page 24.

How a young Killington employee in 1963 found a new and better way to attach lift tickets to people. By Karen D. Lorentz

Jennifer Hanley was shocked when she went skiing in Tignes, France in 1987 and was handed a lift ticket and a wicket. “She had no idea the wicket had spread to Europe,” recalls her father Charlie Hanley, who invented the now-ubiquitous wire device in 1963.

“For 40 years, the wicket was useful,” he adds. He’s being modest. More than 50 years later—despite the development of new technologies and methods, like RFID cards and plastic zip-ties—wickets are still in use at ski resorts around the world.

In the summer of 1960, Hanley was running Golf-land, his miniature golf course and snack bar in Bomoseen, Vermont. “They could use you up at Killington,” said his Pepsi Cola rep. In need of winter work, Hanley scheduled an interview with Killington founder Preston Leete Smith.

“I was intrigued by the ski-area venture, so I agreed to design and build a kitchen system for the new base lodge,” says Hanley. “Killington couldn’t afford to hire me until after Christmas, so I said I could start in October and be paid retroactively. They jumped at the deal! I got $1.50 an hour.” That winter, he and his wife Jane also ran the resort’s food-service operation.

Recognizing Charlie’s expertise in writing detailed reports, Smith promoted him to “systems analyst,” a position that entailed “trying to solve any problem” that Hanley spotted. To address the theft of rental skis, he installed a Regiscope, “a machine I’d seen in a local supermarket. It took simultaneous pictures of the skier and rental slip and solved the theft problem because a picture is intimidating to a thief. It worked so well that we never had to develop the film.”

A bigger problem: transfer of lift tickets
Having started Killington on a shoestring in 1958, Smith faced a more serious problem with his stapled-on lift tickets. Not only did they leave holes in skiers’ clothing, they were often transferred from one skier to another, denying the area much-needed revenue.

“We noticed that some people were trying to attach tickets using pipe cleaners,” recalls Smith. “I wanted something with more strength yet less bendable, so it wouldn’t break or come off easily.”

Hanley remembers seeing a presentation in Smith’s office by a man wanting to sell “a complicated device. It was a regular keychain with a tiny ring attached at one end and a large coil at the other end.

“When he saw me studying it, the salesman said, ‘Oh, I see you, young fellow. You think you can find a way to make it simpler. Well, it can’t be done.’ I’ll never forget that. He was just arrogant enough to get me thinking. We sent him on his way and in five minutes I had the concept in mind. I took an eight-inch piece of wire and bent it in such a way as to allow the wire to be slipped through a zipper talon, belt loop or buttonhole, or around a strap. The heavy-duty paper lift ticket could be folded and stapled over the gizmo’s legs. We called it the gizmo until Jane came up with the name.”

“The U-shape reminded me of the wickets in croquet, so I suggested ticket wicket,” says Jane.

From design to patent
Offered a free trip around the country if he could prove that the wicket would sell, Hanley took his tall blond wife to a national ski operators’ convention, where she demonstrated how the wicket could be attached to clothing without damaging the fabric. As Jane shed various layers, she showed that the wicket would work with parkas, sweaters, stretch pants and, finally, a swimsuit.

Sales were so good that the Hanleys enjoyed the promised trip across ski country in the fall of 1963. “We visited most of the major areas in the United States—there weren’t that many then,” Charlie recalls. “Vail had just opened and I came away with a sense of awe.” Stops in Denver, Seattle, Snoqualmie and Sun Valley are standout memories, as was one visit to an Ohio gravel pit: “Someone had dug out dirt and piled it into a hill and put a lift on it.” Their late-1950s Citroën had a passenger seat that reclined, so one could sleep while the other drove during the three-week journey. 

For the 1963–1964 season, Killington sold 750,000 stainless-steel wickets to 62 U.S. ski areas. The next season, they switched to galvanized wire, which cost 40 percent less, and sold to 100 areas.  In the third season, they hired a Connecticut firm to handle the growing sales. A fall 1965 ad in Ski Area Management magazine read: “Stopping just one cheater in 1,000 skiers will pay for the cost of Ticket Wickets.” (A lift ticket cost $5-$7 then.)

The Sherburne Corporation was issued U.S. patent 3,241,255 on March 22, 1966 and Canadian patent 742,863 on September 20, 1966. Hanley had assigned the rights to Killington’s parent company because he had developed the wicket while on the area’s payroll. Interestingly, the patent applications anticipated sticky-backed tickets by noting that tickets could be secured to the wicket “with either an adhesive or staples.”

Wickets: Still Hanging around
Sherburne Corporation sued an Ohio firm for patent infringement in 1969 but eventually dropped the suit and sold the patent. “Others were infringing the patent [with different wicket shapes] but bringing lawsuits was costly. Since the patent only lasted for 17 years, it didn’t make sense to pursue the cases,” Smith says.

“The wickets sold for pennies, so it wasn’t worth the time or expense to sue. Ticket wicket wasn’t a money-making business, it was a way to solve problems,” Hanley adds.

Sometime in the 1970s, Killington shifted to using pressure-sensitive adhesive on the back of computer-generated tickets. In 2004–2005, the resort switched to the plastic tie that’s threaded through a coated “tag” ticket and looped to a closure. Although many areas have changed to tie-tag ticketing and others have adopted RFID cards, reports of the wicket’s demise are exaggerated: U.S. companies from coast to coast still manufacture and distribute ticket wickets, including Standard Portable (New York), Southington Tool & Manufacturing (Connecticut), and Amlon Industries and Gold Coast (California).

“Half the lift tickets sold today are secured to a guest via a wire wicket and half with ties,” says Jason Shoats, vice president of sales for Worldwide Ticketcraft. “Smaller areas can’t afford the new methods, and RFID [cards] are more expensive.”

A half-century later, Charlie Hanley’s ticket wicket is still hanging around.  

 

Vermont ski writer Karen Lorentz is author of Okemo: All Come Home, Killington: A Story of Mountains and Men, and The Great Vermont Ski Chase.

INTERVIEW by Yves Perret

In an exclusive interview, Jean-Claude Killy recalls the first season of the World Cup, 50 years ago, when he won 12 of the 17 races, all of the downhills, and finished on the podium in 86% of the races he entered, a record never surpassed.

The winter of 1967 remains one of the most memorable in alpine ski competition history. Not only did it introduce the new World Cup—skiing’s first use of a season-long series of competitions to determine the world’s best—it also resulted in an astonishing, never-to-be-repeated record. Jean-Claude Killy won 12 out of the 17 slalom, giant slalom and downhill races on the calendar. He finished on the podium in 86 percent of the 29 races he entered. 

In an exclusive interview with sports editor Yves Perret in the last issue of Skiing History (January-February 2017), Killy told about the origins of the World Cup, his motivations, and his early victories in the historic first season of the World Cup, which this year is celebrating its 5oth anniversary. Part Two is the conclusion. 

Killy had just won both the downhill and slalom at Wengen, Switzerland. Now came a high point of the season—the classic Hahnenkamm competition at Kitzbühel, Austria. . .

Kitzbühel was a special moment. What was it like for you?

Competing at Kitzbühel is the most exciting thing imaginable for a ski racer. You’re in Austria, where skiing is the national sport. We were challenging the guys who embody skiing itself, cheered on by an immense crowd of spectators. I was respected, but my relationship with the Austrian public could be complicated. To relieve myself from the pressure of fans surrounding our living quarters, I sometimes would even send Jean-Pierre Augert, who looked a lot like me, to go into the crowd and sign autographs. 

Winning in Kitzbühel is every skier’s dream. That year I won the downhill, the slalom, and the combined, and I became the first—and still the only—skier to achieve the double-double win in Wengen and Kitzbühel, or triple win including the combined. Nowadays we don’t realize what that represented, but winning the combined was important even if it didn’t count for World Cup points and was a mathematical point combination.

In the Hahnenkamm downhill, the world’s most difficult and dangerous, I came in ahead of the German Franz Vogler by 1.37 seconds, and I beat the course record held by Austria’s Karl Schranz. 

The Kitzbühel slalom is magnificent—staggeringly varied, with sidehills and rhythm changes. The atmosphere can be hostile for rivals of the Austrian team. You have to stay in a bubble, keep concentrated, be removed from the noise and the pressure, focusing on your own run. I was the fastest in both runs of the slalom. I beat by more than two seconds the Swede Bengt-Erik Grahn, who was one of the best slalom specialists of the era. 

I’ll never forget the atmosphere that weekend. The local ski instructors carried me across on their shoulders to the podium to receive my awards. This would have been unthinkable a couple of years earlier. “Superman on Skis!” headlined the Austrian daily Kronen Zeitung the next day.

After that victorious weekend, Austria’s greatest racer, Toni Sailer wrote, “Killy is practicing a different kind of skiing, a kind of skiing that is a step above that of the best skiers. His wins are those of an all-around athlete who has reached maturity.” By then I had scored 151 out of the maximum of 175 achievable points at that stage in the season. Austria’s Heini Messner, who was in second, had 75 points.

The winning streak continued with the downhill in Megève…

The Emile Allais course was very demanding, with the Bornet face being the most difficult and dangerous section of all of the international downhill races I’d competed in. I beat the Swiss Hans Peter Rohr by two seconds. . . my best downhill ever. I was amazed by the lead. It was my eighth consecutive win. We were in the last days of January, and the 1967 World Cup downhill title was already mine.

Périllat came out ahead in the slalom. He apologized for having beaten me. He had especially wanted to beat Austria’s Karl Schranz, our perpetual rival. I was sick and I fell in the first run, but I finished second anyway, and I won the combined.

I didn’t compete in the World Cup slalom at Madonna di Campiglio, Italy. I took two weeks off. I was imitating Toni Sailer in a way. Before his triple gold medal win at the 1956 Olympics, Toni took several days off from skiing. “That’s what you should do,” he advised.

After resting, I made a comeback at Chamrousse in the February pre-Olympic races, where I won the downhill, as I would the following year in the real Olympics, when I again followed Toni’s strategy of taking a week off. 

Throughout my career, I took inspiration from other top racers in order to optimize my skiing. I watched the way Adrien Duvillard carved his turns. I even copied the weightlifting exercises that I saw Soviet high jumper Valery Brummel do on TV. In 1952 at Val d’Isère when I was a boy, I watched in amazement when Italian champion Zeno Colò started so violently that the starter, who had put his hand on his shoulder, was carried down the hill.  

In the weeks that followed, I continued winning. The season was about confronting each race, one day at a time.  At Sestrières, Italy I won the Kandahar downhill. I liked the course and the beautiful section coming into the forest. We pulled off an all-French podium in the downhill: Killy, Orcel, Périllat. I also went away with a win in the combined. 

The season ended in the USA in March. What was your experience there?

I was on a cloud. I had no doubts, no worries, no anxiety. Going to the States was something we’d been looking forward to. I was close friends with the American racers Billy Kidd and Jimmie Heuga, the son of a French Basque shepherd who had immigrated to the United States. Both were magnificent skiers. I'd met Jimmie in the summer of 1964, my first visit to the U.S. Then in 1965 and 1966 I'd competed in races organized by Bob Beattie. Nothing compared to my U.S. arrival in March 1967, though. A press conference was held when we stopped in New York. We met the governor of Massachusetts. Sports Illustrated, which featured me on its cover three times in my career, ran headlines like “Lafayette, They Are Back.” TIME Magazine hailed me “King Killy.” 

For me, though, the most important thing was to stay on track for the rest of the season, and finish the job.

The Franconia event was very important…

Huge crowds—thousands more spectators than had ever appeared at a U.S. alpine ski event—thronged the slopes of Cannon Mountain, New Hampshire. I won the downhill. I made the last difficult turn above the finish faster than anyone, and it was later named Killy’s Corner. I also won the GS, the slalom and the combined. I had won decisively in all three alpine disciplines, exactly like the gold medal hat trick I performed 11 months later in the Olympics at Chamrousse.

By then I was sure to win the World Cup. It was a special moment of satisfaction, though the season wasn’t yet over.

There were two more events, Vail and Jackson Hole. How did you approach them?

Winning the Nations Cup became the objective that pushed us as a team, not to give an inch. Plus, our own Marielle Goitschel had the chance to win the women’s overall World Cup, which would have been a double triumph for France. It’s always a great moment when you win as a team.

There were four races in Vail: one slalom, one downhill and two one-run giant slaloms. I won all of them. The last race, on Sunday, counting for World Cup points, was held in a terrible snowstorm. 

At Vail, four or five of us shared the same room in the home of our host, Suzie Meyer. It was a fun time. From Vail, I traveled with Louis Jauffret and our friend Bernard Cahier, a famous motor racing journalist, to California, where racing car designer Carol Shelby was waiting for us in his workshop near LA airport. We flew in Carol’s personal plane to Riverside, where we drove all day long on the circuit. 

After a night in Las Vegas, we went to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for the World Cup Finals. Here two more races—a giant slalom and a slalom—would be held. I was tired; I’d had a sinus infection the previous days. In order to save energy and have a little fun, I inspected the giant slalom course in a sled! I won the race. It was amazing! Including Europe, I had just won nine races in a row—three  downhills, two slaloms, and four giant slaloms. 

In the last race, the slalom at Jackson Hole, I DQ’d. But I had already earned the maximum World Cup points, 75, in each discipline, ending the season with the maximum possible 225 World Cup points. The Evian mineral water company, first sponsor of the World Cup, paid for my father to come to Jackson Hole, bringing with him the crystal trophy. The official presentation was held later in Evian, France.  

The trophy presentation took place in Jackson Hole’s Cowboy Bar. It was preceded by a reception, with free margaritas and pisco sours for all. It was wild night. I remember that the sheriff came to make order in the streets and—I don’t know how—Marielle (Goitschel) dropped him to the floor. He finally understood who we were, and everything turned out okay.  

The season was over, or almost. There were still a couple of races in Switzerland when I got home. I won a GS at Verbier, and Mauduit beat me in Thyon. But it was on the American tour that the bulk of the job was finished.

Who were your main rivals during that magic winter?

The winter of 1967 was notable for an incredible density of talent. No fewer than 14 skiers from seven different nations placed second in the races that I won. In the overall World Cup, I scored almost twice as many points as the runner-up, Austrian Heini Messner. He was a classic skier—a reserved man but consistent and hard to beat. He was followed in the standings by my teammates—Périllat, Lacroix and Mauduit—and my great buddy Jimmie Heuga. Four times during the season I’d found myself on top of the podium with Jimmie.  

It was an era when an amateur spirit was still felt in the sport. There was a real affinity among us skiers from all different countries. Once on the course, we were rivals, but it didn’t alter our relationships. People talked about a rivalry with Karl Schranz, but the battle took place on skis. The rest of the time we got along really well. With all the skiers of that era, there are plenty of shared memories, moments of laughter, and anecdotes.

This incredible season generated a remarkable level of media coverage and fame. How did you handle it?

Media attention quickly came from beyond the few newspapers and magazines that typically cover international alpine skiing. After my win at Wengen, the media following us were no longer the usual ones like Paris Match and the French television show, Cinq Colonnes à la Une. The popular mass tabloids were onto us. They wanted to know everything about us. . . not just our lives as athletes. By the end of the 1967 season, the tour was a media frenzy.

Guy Périllat warned me in January, at the Tennein Kitzbühel, where we traditionally celebrated our success. He said, “Watch out, don’t get caught up in what happens around you. It brought me down after my 1961 season [Ed. note: In that season Périllat won all the downhills, followed by a dry spell that lasted several seasons.] But I know that won’t happen to you because you know how to keep things in perspective.”

With my experience of 1967, I learned how to deal with the constant presence of special correspondents from the French and international press. I had to be able to open the doors, then close them. That was also what I did the following Olympic season in Grenoble. A 30-minute press conference every day and that was it.

The American tour proved hugely rewarding for me. I had offers from sports agents. I was offered $200,000 to join the professional circuit and manage a ski school in the States. A lot was expected of me, but I had to stay focused on the Olympics the following year.

When did you become aware of the exceptional nature of the 1967 season?

I never really grasped it entirely. I didn’t realize what I’d achieved. Of course, there were the numbers: winner of 19 races out of 29, including 12 World Cups out of 17, and seven of the season’s combineds for a total of 26 first-place finishes. But I never said to myself, “Wow, that’s fantastic!” It’s taken me 50 years to realize how remarkable it was.

In Grenoble in 1968, by comparison, things were actually relatively simple. There were three races within a set period of time, at a date identified well in advance, with an objective that was fairly clear. The 1967 season was a more complicated, elaborate construction. Comparing them is like comparing a sprint and a marathon. 

 

In the summer of 1967, I quickly moved on to something new. I had an overwhelming passion for motor sports. I won The Targa Florio with Bernard Cahier and drove 1000 KM of Monza, the 24 hours of Le Mans, and the 1000 KM Nurbürgring behind the wheel of a Porsche or an Alpine. It was good to experience other sensations, and new challenges. Now, 50 years later, I’ve had the pleasure of revisiting this incredible season at the request of Skiing History. Thank you!

Yves Perret, who heads a sports media agency in Grenoble, is former sports editor of the Dauphiné Libéré newspaper, and was editor-in-chief of Ski Chrono.

By Michel Beaudry

Nancy Greene of Canada came from behind to win the 1967 inaugural World Cup overall title by the slimmest of margins in a thrilling final race.

Nancy Greene Raine is a force of nature. A two-time overall FIS World Cup champion (1967-1968) and an Olympic gold and silver medalist at the 1968 Winter Games, Greene Raine was raised in the ski-mad town of Rossland, British Columbia. Her contributions to the sport are legion. Along with husband Al Raine, she was an early promoter of Whistler and Blackcomb Mountains in BC before being drawn east to Sun Peaks in the mid-1990s, where the couple has played an integral role in making it one of the country’s most successful year-round mountain resorts. Her namesake program—the Nancy Greene Ski League—has been the gateway to racing for young Canadians for nearly 50 years. In January 2009, she was appointed as a Conservative member of Canada’s Senate.

In this exclusive interview, conducted in November 2016, Greene Raine, 73, looks back at the 1967 World Cup season, which she won by the slimmest of margins after mounting a late-season comeback.

Only one race left. And the young ski racer they call Tiger knows exactly how high the stakes are. Considered by many to be out of the running for the inaugural World Cup after failing to score any points for nearly two months, 23-year-old Nancy Greene of Canada has mounted an impressive comeback these last few weeks. It started with a third in Franconia, followed by a big-time win in Vail; then came Jackson Hole and a crushing victory in yesterday’s giant slalom. Suddenly her main rival is within reach again. But France’s Marielle Goitschel is still the overwhelming favorite. The only way Tiger can be crowned 1967 overall champion is by winning the slalom today. It’s all or nothing.

Still, Greene is coming into Sunday’s race with a big head of steam. “By this point in the season,” she explains, “I know that if I ski well I can beat anyone. So I’m going for victories, not for fourth-place finishes.” Her giant slalom result on Rendezvous Mountain the day before underscored that attitude: She dominated the one-run race by 1.72 seconds. She’s now only one win away from the title. She knows she can do this.

But the two-run slalom offers its own challenges. “The first run is always a bit of a gamble,” she says. “You want to go flat out and take risks, but you also want to make it to the second run.” Clearly, the same thing is running through the minds of her opponents. For when Sunday’s first run is completed and the times tallied, barely a tenth of a second separates Greene from Goitschel and French teammate Florence Steurer. The ski gods obviously want a dramatic finish to the season.

Who is this Canadian woman who dares to challenge the French skiing juggernaut of the late 1960s? And how the heck has she managed to hoist herself atop the World Cup standings?

Disappointment in portillo

Although Nancy Greene’s story really begins in the remote mountain town of Rossland, British Columbia, one need only revisit the 1966 World Alpine Skiing Championships in Portillo, Chile to get a glimpse of her exceptional drive to succeed.

“I went down to South America with very big goals,” she begins. “I fully expected to be on the podium there.” Makes sense. As a sixteen-year old newcomer to the Canadian Team, Greene had witnessed her mentor and roommate, Anne Heggtveit, win gold at the 1960 Olympics in Squaw Valley. And it had inspired the teenager tremendously. Now, six years later, the experienced racer thought she too could bring skiing glory to her country. But could she really do it? “I was too nervous in the slalom and didn’t perform very well,” she says. “But the downhill was coming up and I knew I was skiing fast.”

Alas, the downhill proved even more disastrous. “I remember my coach quietly telling me in the start gate: ‘Win it! Win it for me, Nancy.’” She sighs. “I guess that got me a little too excited. Near the bottom of the course there was this big roll over a road tunnel. In training, I’d always wind-checked before hitting it. But on race day I decided to take it straight.” Bad decision. “I crashed and somersaulted right into a retaining wall made of ice. I knew I had a good run going. I could even see the finish line…So frustrating.” 

Her best event, the giant slalom, was next. But badly bruised from her downhill fall (and skiing with an undiagnosed fractured tailbone), Greene finished just out of the medals in fourth place. 

Meanwhile, the French team, Les Bleus, had dominated the championships: Two out of every three medals had gone to them. As for Marielle Goitschel, she had won everything but the slalom…and only teammate Annie Famose had skied faster in that race. 

But Tiger didn’t come away from Chile entirely empty-handed. Says Greene Raine: “Rossignol had just come out with a new fiberglass ski they wanted me to try, called the Strato. So I tested a pair in La Parva before the World Championships. And I loved skiing on them. But I decided that I shouldn’t switch skis before such a big event, and I hid them under a huge stack of ski bags so I wouldn’t be tempted.”

Nancy returned home with her new skis and an even greater determination to win. “My coach, a former racer called Verne Anderson, also lived in Rossland,” she says. “And together we trained with a veteran who’d been a fitness trainer in the military. He knew nothing about skiing. But he knew everything about weight training.”

Greene had another secret weapon. The Canadian Team was now based out of Notre Dame University in nearby Nelson, BC. “It was so practical to have a place where everyone could live and work and study together,” she says. Smiles. “Besides, training with the men’s squad meant there was always somebody to chase.”

Things were also progressing well on-snow. And the more she skied on her new Rossignol skis, the more Nancy realized how much they suited her style. “They were 207cm giant slalom skis, and they really set me up for the season. In those days the thinking was that fiberglass skis were great on hard snow but you needed metal skis to go fast on softer snow.” She stops. Laughs. “Well, I trusted those Stratos so much that when I left for the first European races of the 1967 season, I left my metal skis at home.” 

It was a radical decision—and a risky one, given the dramatically different way ski races were being organized that year. “We really didn’t know much about this new circuit called ‘The FIS World Cup’ when we got to Europe in January,” she says. “I’m not even sure the Canadian Ski Association fully understood what was going on. We were all a bit surprised by the changes.”

And yet from the moment she came charging out of the gate that year, Tiger made her presence felt. Two World Cup races in Oberstaufen, Germany (a slalom and a giant slalom) and a gap of 1.24 seconds between her and the next finisher in the GS. At the second World Cup stop, in fabled Grindelwald, Switzerland, Greene won twice more, this time adding downhill points to her mounting World Cup lead. Five races, four victories. The Europeans were in shock.

Greene continued to ski well, if not quite at the same scintillating pace. In Schruns, Austria she was third in the slalom and fourth in downhill. Though they were closing the gap, the French women were still behind in the race for the overall crown.

But the members of the Canadian Team had race obligations back in North America and were scheduled to return home. Would Greene be forced to accompany them? “It wasn’t common practice to leave athletes behind to compete on their own in those days,” explains Greene Raine. “But at the last minute, our coaches decided that my teammate Karen Dokka and I would remain in Europe for one more event.”

They didn’t have it particularly easy. “We were responsible for everything,” she says. “We even had to prep and wax our own skis. Still, it was a lot of fun. It felt very liberating to be left alone like that.” But the lack of team support began to show and she failed to earn any points at the next two races in St-Gervais, France. Still, when she left for home in February, many on the circuit were convinced Tiger was making the biggest mistake of her career. By missing the last European stops, they argued, she was leaving the door wide open for her rivals to score points.            

The World Cup points formula was complex that year: only the top three results in each discipline would count toward an athlete’s total in the race for the overall title. “But my dad, the engineer, had crunched all the numbers,” she says. “He was confident that there were still enough races in the spring for me to make up the point deficit.”

And so was Nancy. “I knew that I had to start strong in those first March races in New Hampshire. And if I could do that, well…” Although it was less than the victory she needed, Tiger managed to scratch her way onto the giant slalom podium in Franconia. But it was during the slalom the next day that she had her big revelation.

“The Canadian Team had been working with plastic boots since the previous spring,” she remembers. “One of our coaches, Dave Jacobs, had struck a close relationship with Bob Lange and so the Canadian men had been testing his boots for some time. Well, my feet were so small that it took Lange a long while to make a boot my size. But by March of ’67 they were done, and I received my first pair just before the slalom in Franconia.” A pause. “I remember skiing with them that afternoon. I couldn’t feel a thing. ‘I can’t ski with those,’ I thought. ‘Way too stiff.’”

But the skies cleared that night and Nancy watched the day’s mushy March snow freeze into a hard, firm surface. “I was still struggling with my decision: go with my soft leather boots or try the stiff plastic ones. But then I realized: ‘It’s going to be boilerplate tomorrow. What better time to use the new boots?’”

It wasn’t love at first try. “I was all over the place on my first run… skiing really raggedy. But I got the hang of those boots by the second run and skied really well. Unfortunately I didn’t finish—I caught a tip near the bottom of the course. Still, I knew what I could achieve in those boots with a little practice.”

She never looked back. By the giant slalom in Vail, Greene was in full form again, winning the run by more than half a second. Only the World Cup finals remained. “My dad was still tabulating the points,” says Greene Raine. “’All you have to do,’ he said, ‘is win the last two races and the title is yours.’”

Last Stop, Jackson Hole

For some athletes the pressure would be unbearable. But Tiger thrives on it. Like a laser-guided missile, Greene launched into her Grand Teton weekend by blowing her competitors away in the season’s penultimate race. By the next day and the start of the slalom’s second run, Greene was in a three-way tie for the race lead. The overall title was now within her grasp. But the Canadian had to win the run.

“The course-setter for the second run has provided the racers with a choice,” she remembers. “There’s an elbow set halfway down the course. The rhythm goes one way, but if you jam your skis hard, you can straight-line the gates, and come out of the elbow with way more speed. But it’s risky…” 

Greene sees the trick passage during inspection and thinks, ‘I’ve got nothing to lose. I’m going to shoot the gate.’ But it might prove costly. While most of the women take the easier route, the racer just ahead of her attempts the straighter line, catches a tip at the top of the elbow and takes out all the gates.

Now it’s the Canadian racer’s turn to worry. “There I am standing in the start gate thinking to myself: ‘If they re-set the course any different than it was, I’m hooped.’” 

Meanwhile, the announcer at the finish line is whipping up the crowd. What he doesn’t know is that there are loudspeakers at the start too. Says Greene Raine: “I’m still in the start gate, waiting for the course to be cleared, and all I can hear is the emcee saying over and over: ‘The next racer is Nancy Greene. She needs to win here, folks, second place isn’t any good.’” She laughs. “I think it’s around the fourth time that he says ‘this could be the most important moment in her life’ that something snaps inside me. ‘This is ridiculous,’ I think. ‘It’s Easter Sunday. Look at the view. What a beautiful place this is.’” She pauses for a beat. 

“I’ll always remember that moment,” she says. “It was like an out-of-body experience. And it put me in just the right frame of mind to race that final run.” Another stop. More laughter. “Well, I shot the gate just like I’d planned, and made it safely to the finish line. I think I beat Marielle by 0.07 of a second in the total time.” But it was enough. Tiger had just won history’s first ever World Cup of skiing by the merest of margins: four points (176-172). It was a racing tour de force rarely matched since. And it ensured Nancy Greene’s place in the ski pantheon of all-time greats.  

Sa saison 1967 est un plus grand exploit que son triplé olympique. Dans une interview exclusive, Jean-Claude Killy se souvient de la première saison de la Coupe du monde, il ya 50 ans, quand il a remporté 12 des 17 courses, y compris toutes les descentes, et a terminé sur le podium dans 89% des courses qu'il a entrées, un record qui n'a jamais été surpassé.

Interview de Yves Perret, Skiing History Magazine, 2017.

Read this story in English.

Cinquante ans après, la saison 1967 reste un des moments les plus aboutis de l’histoire du ski alpin. La première Coupe du Monde de l’histoire coïncide avec un de ses exploits les plus marquants.

Vainqueur de 19 courses sur 29, dont  12 de Coupe du Monde sur 17, et des six combinés de la saison dont la Coupe des Nations pour un total de 25 « 1st places », Jean-Claude Killy a remporté le premier globe de cristal avec le maximum de points possibles (225) soit 101 points d’avance sur l’Autrichien Heinrich Messner, son dauphin.

Autre chiffre incroyable, il a terminé 88.9% des courses ou combinés auxquels il a participé  sur le podium…

En juin dernier, chez lui, à Genève, « King Killy » comme l’ont surnommé les journaux de l’époque, nous a reçus. Sur la table, il a ouvert les épais albums où sont classées avec méthode les coupures de presse qui retracent les moments forts d’une destinée hors normes. Sur un cahier où sont inscrits ses résultats, d’une écriture rectiligne, une phrase : « La victoire aime l’effort ».

Pendant plusieurs heures, Mister Killy est redevenu le meilleur skieur de la planète.

 

INTERVIEW

Jean-Claude, comment s’est dessinée la saison 1967 au cours des saisons précédentes?

Cela a été une lente construction, avec des étapes importantes et la même obsession : gagner.

En 1963, je termine onze fois à la deuxième place.

Les Jeux de 1964 à Innsbrück avaient été un désastre technique.

Je perds ma fixation avant dans le slalom. Je chute dans le premier dévers dans la descente. Mes carres avaient été mal travaillées.

Je finis cinquième du géant. Je n’étais pas prêt.

La semaine suivante, je remporte le Kandahar devant Jimmy Heuga, mon copain américain. Ce qui prouve que la base était présente mais que je n’avais pas encore tout résolu.

En 1964, je n’avais pas encore trouvé les solutions à mes problèmes de santé contractés durant la Guerre d’Algérie. J’étais maigre, je n’avais pas d’endurance.

Je faisais des coups comme au Critérium de la Première Neige en 1961 mais je manquais d’un système pour avoir de la constance dans les trois disciplines. Se spécialiser, c’est enlever des chances de gagner et je ne le voulais pas.

Je souhaitais mettre en place une organisation qui me permette de gommer un maximum de ces impondérables qui font la spécificité du ski alpin de compétition.

Un des moments importants fut lorsque Michel Arpin a été engagé par Dynamic pour s’occuper de mes skis. Nous étions très complices et il m’avait pris sous son aile depuis mes débuts.

Il était originaire de Saint Foy en Tarentaise, tout près de Val d’Isère, et nous parlions le même patois local. Je savais que mes skis étaient entre les meilleures mains car j’avais une confiance aveugle en lui.

 

Comment qualifiez-vous le processus qui vous a conduit jusqu’au sommet ?

Ma démarche était personnelle. En équipe de France, on passait tout l’hiver ensemble mais avant le premier stage d’automne, chacun avait sa façon de faire. J’étais à la recherche obsessionnellement de ce qui pourrait me faire progresser.

L’équipement était capital. Il était impératif d’avoir les meilleurs skis existants. On ne peut pas perdre une course à cause du matériel car c’est l’élément déterminant. Je skiais avec le matériel de deux marques, Rossignol et Dynamic, sans contrat d’exclusivité, ce qui me permettait de choisir à chaque course la paire qui me convenait le mieux.

Cela impliquait d’adopter une ligne de conduite différente … et de faire des sacrifices financiers dans l’instant.

En 1963, je termine même 2^e du Kandahar avec des skis de descente autrichiens. A Portillo, j’ai utilisé des Rossignol en géant et des Dynamic pour les autres épreuves. Monsieur Bonnet nous comprenait. Le but, c’était de gagner des courses de ski.

J’ai toujours fonctionné ainsi. J’étais animé d’une passion débordante pour le ski, mais tourné vers la compétition.

J’ai fait l’impasse sur les études. Cela laisse du temps… mais cela ferme des portes et peut compliquer la reconversion.

La compétition était une obsession saine car je conservais ma liberté intellectuelle.  Le ski était mon métier.

Pour moi, seule la victoire comptait. Je n’avais pas le choix. C’était simplement ma seule forme d’expression.

 

Quelles ont été les clés de votre réussite?

Il y a à partir de 1965, la conjonction d’éléments qui, liés, ont permis de poursuivre la montée en puissance.

L’organisation Bonnet  qui nous accompagnait vers les sommets en était une.

L’industrie française qui  nous soutenait avec Rossignol, Dynamic, Look, Trappeur, Salomon une autre.

Les stations françaises et les hôteliers n’hésitaient pas de leur côté à nous ouvrir leurs portes pour presque rien.

Nous entrons dans une des plus belles périodes de notre sport avec l’avènement du ski moderne.

Il y a la conjonction de moyens financiers accrus, d’hommes et de professionnels expérimentés.

La diffusion télévisée devient mondiale et contribue à faire des sportifs des mythes.

 

Il règne alors en France une atmosphère miraculeuse. De Gaulle l’affirme : « Nos sportifs sont nos meilleurs ambassadeurs. »

 D’un coup, on passe des dortoirs de l’UCPA à un hôtel quatre étoiles.

J’ai posé une à une les pièces du puzzle et cela ne s’est fait pas du jour au lendemain.

En 1965, je suis élu Skieur d’Or Martini et Champion des Champions du journal L’Equipe, je remporte 9 victoires, je finis sept fois à la deuxième place.

 

Quelle est l’importance de la création de la Coupe du Monde dans la réalisation de cette saison incroyable?

Cela faisait plusieurs années que les skieurs ne supportaient plus de jouer une carrière sur une journée de Championnats du Monde ou de Jeux Olympiques. En outre, à cette époque, il était rare, par exemple, de participer à deux Jeux olympiques.

On était tous passionnés de Formule 1 et, pour nous, la référence, était le classement de la saison de ce Championnat du Monde. L’idée d’un classement sur la saison nous semblait la plus juste expression de la réalité de notre sport.

Nous avons souvent discuté de notre frustration  et de ce qui pourrait résoudre le problème et il nous semblait facile d’adapter cela au ski.  Le plan de la Coupe du monde de ski alpin formulé en 1966 par le journaliste Serge Lang, en collaboration avec l'Américain Bob Beattie, le Français Honoré Bonnet et l'Autrichien Sepp Sulzberger, soutenu par le quotidien sportif parisien L'Equipe et des journalistes comme Michel Clare - et John Fry, qui a ajouté la Coupe des Nations au mix, allait dans ce sens.

A Portillo, on était dans l’aire d’arrivée de la descente après ma victoire. Tout le monde pleurait. Serge Lang me demande : « La Coupe du Monde arrive. Comment vas-tu l’aborder. »

Je lui ai répondu : « Je vais la survoler… » Dans mon esprit, cela ne signifiait pas que j’allais l’écraser mais que j’allais en tirer la quintessence pour franchir une étape dans mon parcours sportif.

S’il n’y a pas de Coupe du Monde, il n’y a peut-être pas cette saison 67. C’est plus fort que Grenoble. Il n’y avait désormais plus uniquement les grandes classiques pour couronner la réussite d’une saison.

Comment qualifieriez-vous les relations au sein de l’équipe de France?

Nous étions liés à la vie à la mort. On s’entraînait ensemble, on s’affrontait tous les weekends

Aujourd’hui encore, nous restons aussi complices que des frères.

Au printemps 1966, on a skié des kilomètres au col de l’Iseran sur le glacier de Pissaillas. On s’est mutuellement nourris de nos qualités, de nos personnalités. Il y a toujours eu entre nous du respect, de l’humilité.

En 1967, Honoré Bonnet était à un an de la retraite mais le système était en place et fonctionnait parfaitement.

Michel Arpin s’occupait de mes skis et des chronos. Je savais que je pouvais m’appuyer totalement sur son savoir-faire et chacun dans l’équipe avait son rôle.

Par exemple, Melquiond apportait son calme et sa sérénité. Nous avons été compagnons de chambre pendant 7 ans sans qu’il y ait le moindre conflit d’égo.

Périllat était le capitaine de route écouté et respecté.

Léo Lacroix amenait son optimisme, sa bonne humeur… et son talent.

Mauduit le géantiste et Jauffret le slalomeur étaient des skieurs magnifiques.

Tous les talents de cette équipe et ces tempéraments additionnés formaient une formidable escouade.

Abordons, la saison 1967… Débutée en décembre 1966 chez vous, à Val d’Isère, par le traditionnel Critérium de la Première Neige…

Léo dit encore aujourd’hui en riant : « Je suis le seul à avoir battu Killy en 1967 en descente » car il s’était imposé à Val d’Isère. Lorsque je le taquine, je lui rappelle que c’était en décembre 1966 …

Le Critérium ne comptait pas encore pour la Coupe du Monde. C’était un beau moment de la saison. Celui-ci est un peu particulier car c’est la première fois qu’il se disputait sur la nouvelle piste de la Daille, la Oreiller-Killy.

La Coupe du Monde débute le 5 et 6 janvier à Berchtesgaden où vous terminez troisième du géant. Mais le premier succès vient quelques jours plus tard dans le géant d’Adelboden, première victoire d’une série de huit en comptant les combinés…  

Je gagne avec le dossard 13. Adelboden a toujours été une des pistes de références en géant. Y gagner, c’est valider une condition physique et des qualités. Le premier succès est un passage important.

 

Vous enchaînez avec deux victoires (descente et slalom) à Wengen. Quelle est l’importance de ce doublé?

Je préférais Kitzbühel à Wengen.

Dans la descente, je devance Léo de 25 centièmes. C’est la première victoire française dans le Lauberhorn depuis Guy Périllat en 1961. Elle a d’autant plus de saveur que les Autrichiens avaient qualifié notre triomphe de Portillo de folklorique et ils nous attendaient au tournant.

Pour toute l’équipe, c’est un moment important.

Je domine aussi le slalom qui est, pour moi, le plus pentu et le plus difficile de l’année.  

Avec ce triplé, puisque je remporte aussi le combiné, j’ai l’impression de rentrer définitivement chez les grands.

 

Kitzbühel, la semaine suivante, est un moment à part. Comment l’avez-vous vécu?

Courir à Kitzbühel était ce qu’il y avait de plus excitant. On était en Autriche, pour défier des mecs qui représentaient le ski, supportés par une foule immense. On me respectait mais j’avais des rapports parfois compliqués avec le public.

Il m’est même arrivé d’envoyer Jean-Pierre Augert, qui me ressemblait beaucoup, pour traverser la foule et signer des autographes.

Gagner à Kitzbühel, c’est le rêve de tous les skieurs. Cette année-là, je remporte la descente, le slalom et le combiné et je deviens le premier à réaliser ce double triplé.

On n’a pas conscience aujourd’hui de ce que cela représente mais remporter, comme à Wengen, le combiné est important même si cela ne comptait pas pour la Coupe du Monde. 

En descente, je devance Vogler d’1’’37 et je bats le record de la piste qui appartenait à Karl Schranz.

Le slalom de Kitzbühel est le plus beau. Il est très varié, avec des dévers, des changements de rythme. Il règne parfois une ambiance hostile et il faut savoir rester dans sa bulle. Je bats le Suédois Grahn, qui faisait partie des meilleurs spécialistes de la discipline de plus de deux secondes en gagnant les deux manches.

Il a régné durant ce weekend une ambiance que je n’oublierai jamais. J’ai traversé la station sur les épaules des moniteurs de ski de la station pour aller chercher mes récompenses. Cela aurait été impensable quelques années plus tôt.

« Superman sur des skis » titrait le Kronen Zeitung, un des principaux quotidiens autrichiens le lendemain.

Après ce weekend victorieux, Toni Sailer a écrit: « Killy pratique un autre ski, un ski d’un échelon supérieur à celui des meilleurs. Ses victoires sont celles d’un athlète complet arrivé à maturité. »

J’ai  alors marqué 151 points sur 175 possibles. Messner, deuxième,  possède 75 points.  

 

La série continue en descente à Megève…

La piste Emile Allais est très exigeante avec son mur Bornet qui est le passage le plus difficile et le plus dangereux des descentes internationales sur lesquelles j’ai couru.  

Je devance Hans Peter Rohr de deux secondes. Je réussis ma meilleure descente. Je suis étonné de l’avance. C’est ma huitième victoire consécutive et le globe de cristal de la descente est gagné.

 

En slalom, Périllat s’impose  et s’excuse de m’avoir battu. Il voulait surtout dominer Schranz, notre éternel rival.  Pourtant, je suis malade, je tombe dans la première manche mais je finis deuxième quand même et je gagne le combiné.

 

Je déclare forfait pour les épreuves de Madonna. Je prends quinze jours de pause et je fais ma rentrée à Chamrousse pour les pré-Olympiques où je m’impose en descente.

Un jour Toni Sailer m’avait raconté qu’avant ses trois victoires de 1956 aux Jeux Olympiques de Cortina, il avait arrêté de skier plusieurs jours. « Tu devrais faire cela » m’avait-il dit. Je l’ai imité en 1967, puis, un an plus tard avant les Jeux Olympiques de Grenoble, où je m’étais échappé une semaine à Montgenèvre chez mes amis Jauffret et Melquiond pour m’éloigner du ski et de la compétition.

Durant toute ma carrière, je me suis inspiré d’autres champions pour optimiser mon ski. Zeno  Colo que j’avais vu emporter le starter avec lui pour sa façon de sortir du portillon de départ, Adrien Duvillard pour sa manière de conduire le virage ou même le sauteur en hauteur soviétique Valery Brummel dont j’ai repris les exercices de weight lifting vus à la télé.

 

Les semaines suivantes, j’enchaîne ensuite sur le Kandahar à Sestrières avec un triplé français -Killy, Orcel, Périllat- en descente et une victoire dans le combiné très recherchée à l’époque. J’aime cette piste et l’entrée en forêt, superbe, le long des arbres.

  

 

La saison s’achève aux USA avec la traditionnelle Tournée américaine. Comment l’avez-vous vécue?

La fin de saison s’est déroulée dans la facilité. Il y a zéro doute, zéro soucis, zéro angoisse. Je suis sur un nuage.

Nous nous envolons pour les USA et c’était un moment que nous attendions avec impatience. J’étais très ami avec les coureurs américains –notamment Billy Kidd et Jimmy Heuga, le fils d’un berger basque français qui avait émigré aux Etats-Unis- qui étaient aussi de magnifiques skieurs.

Aller là-bas, traverser l’Atlantique était toujours un plaisir et une aventure. Pour ma génération, c’était un voyage important. Un de mes rêves d’enfant était de connaître l’Amérique

A la fin de cette saison 1967, cette tournée est un monument médiatique.

J’ai des propositions d’agents. On m’offre 200 000 dollars pour rejoindre le circuit professionnel et gérer une école de ski aux USA.

A l’escale de New York, une conférence de presse est organisée. Nous sommes reçus par le gouverneur du Massachussets.

On attend beaucoup de moi mais je dois rester concentré.

Dans Sports Illustrated, dont j’ai fait la couverture à trois reprises au cours de ma carrière, on peut lire des titres comme « Lafayette, they are back » ou « King Killy ».

Mais pour moi, il s’agit de ne pas perdre le fil de la saison et de terminer le boulot.  

 

L’étape de Franconia est importante…

Je gagne la descente. Une section difficile de la piste de Cannon Mountain est rebaptisée « Killy’s Corner» (Virage Killy). Cette fois, c’est sûr, je gagne la Coupe du monde.

Je remporte aussi le géant, le slalom et le combiné. Ce sont des moments de plénitude rares mais la saison n’est pas encore terminée.

 

Il reste pourtant deux dernières étapes à Vail et à Jackson Hole, comment les abordez-vous?

La Coupe des Nations devient un enjeu pour nous qui nous pousse à ne rien lâcher. L’équipe de France s’impose et c’est toujours un bon moment de gagner collectivement.

A Vail, je gagne deux géants, une descente et un slalom.

Evian, le commanditaire de la Coupe du Monde, offre le voyage à Robert, mon père, qui amène le globe de cristal  à Jackson Hole.

Là-bas, j’étais fatigué, j’avais souffert d’une sinusite les jours précédents.

Je reconnais la descente … en luge pour ménager mes forces et prendre un peu de bon temps.

A Jackson Hole, je gagne encore un géant.

La saison est finie ou presque puisqu’il me reste encore des courses en Suisse à mon retour à Verbier où je gagne, et à Thyon, où je suis battu par Mauduit.

Mais c’est durant la tournée américaine que le « boulot » a été terminé.

Je suis heureux de partager du bon temps avec mes copains.

 

Quels ont été vos adversaires durant cet hiver magique?

C’est une saison d’une incroyable densité avec 14 skieurs issus de sept nations, qui ont pris la deuxième place des courses que j’ai remporté.

Heinrich Messner a terminé à la deuxième place du classement général de la Coupe du Monde. C’était un skieur « classique », un homme discret mais toujours régulier et difficile à battre.

Je me suis retrouvé à quatre reprises sur la plus haute marche du podium accompagné de mon grand copain Jimmy Heuga. C’était une époque encore « amateur » dans l’esprit. Il y avait une vraie complicité entre les skieurs de toutes les nations avec lesquels on partageait de très beaux moments.

Une fois sur la piste, nous devenions adversaires, sans que cela n’altère nos relations. On a parlé de rivalité, notamment avec Karl Schranz mais la bagarre, c’est sur les skis qu’elle avait lieu. Le reste du temps, on s’entendait vraiment bien. Avec tous les skieurs de cette époque, nous avons des dizaines de souvenirs en commun, de fous rires partagés et d’anecdotes.

 

Cette saison incroyable a déclenché une médiatisation et notoriété hors normes. Comment l’avez-vous gérée?

Cela a vite débordé du cadre du ski alpin. A partir de Wengen sont arrivés des médias qui n’étaient pas ceux qui nous suivaient d’habitude comme Paris Match ou l’émission de télé très populaire en France Cinq Colonnes à la une.

Aujourd’hui, on parlerait de presse « people » qui voulait tout connaître de nous et pas seulement de nos vies de sportifs.

En janvier, au Tenne, à Kitzbühel, où nous avions l’habitude de fêter nos succès, Perillat m’avait mis en garde : « Fais attention, ne t’occupe pas de ce qui se passe autour. Cela m’a coulé après ma saison 1961 (nldr : durant cette saison, il avait remporté toutes les descentes avant de connaître un passage à vide de plusieurs saisons). Mais je sais que cela ne t’arrivera pas car tu sais faire la part des choses. »

1967 m’est tombé dessus et j’ai appris à composer avec la présence constante des envoyés spéciaux de toute la presse française et internationale. Il fallait être capable d’ « ouvrir » les portes puis de les refermer. C’est également ce que j’ai fait la saison suivante à Grenoble. Trente minutes de point presse chaque jour et c’est tout.

 

Quand avez-vous pris conscience du caractère exceptionnel de cette saison 67?

Je ne l’ai jamais perçue dans sa totalité. Je ne me suis pas rendu compte de ce que j’ai réalisé. Bien sûr, il y a des chiffres : 12 de Coupe du Monde sur 17, vainqueur de 19 courses sur 29, et six combinés de la saison pour un total de 25 « 1st places.»

Mais je ne me suis jamais dit « C’est fantastique »

Il m’a fallu 50 ans pour m’apercevoir que cela n’était pas commun.

Chaque époque possède ses challenges. Longtemps, ce qui m’a hanté, c’est ma deuxième place en descente à Kitzbühel en 1968. Cela m’a rendu malade. Comme quoi l’esprit se focalise parfois sur des anecdotes.

La saison 1967 est posée dans mon histoire sportive entre les Championnats du Monde de Portillo en 66 et les Jeux Olympiques de 1968. Elle fait face aux objectifs d’une journée, les fameuses « courses du jour J ». Ce sont, pour moi, des exploits qui vivent bien les uns à côté des autres et se complètent.

Finalement, 1968 à Grenoble, c’était assez « simple »… Il y avait trois courses, dans un laps de temps déterminé, à une date connue bien à l’avance, avec un objectif finalement assez clair.

1967, c’est une construction plus compliquée, plus élaborée…

Les comparer, c’est comparer un sprint et un marathon.

A l’été 67, je suis passé à autre chose assez vite. J’avais une passion immodérée du sport automobile. La Targa Florio, Monza, les 24 Heures du Mans, le Nurbürgring au volant de Porsche ou d’Alpine.  C’était bien de vivre d’autres moments, d’autres sensations, d’autres défis.

Aujourd’hui, c’est en me replongeant avec plaisir 50 ans après à la demande de Skiing History dans cette saison incroyable que je me rends compte que ce n’était pas si mal. Thank you, guys !

Yves Perret, qui dirige une agence de médias sportifs à Grenoble, est l'ancien rédacteur sportif du journal Dauphiné Libéré et rédacteur en chef de Ski Chrono.

By Yves Perret

Lire cet article en français

It was greater than his famous Olympic gold-medal hat trick. In an exclusive interview, Jean-Claude Killy recalls the first season of the World Cup, 50 years ago, when he won 12 of the 17 races, including all of the downhills, and finished on the podium in 86% of the races he entered, a record that’s never been surpassed.

Fifty years after the fact, 1967 remains one of the most memorable seasons in alpine ski competition history. Not only did it introduce the new World Cup—skiing’s first use of a season-long series of competitions to determine the world’s best—but it also resulted in an astonishing, never-to-be-repeated record. 

Jean-Claude Killy of France won 12 out of the 17 slalom, giant slalom and downhill races on the calendar. He was the victor in all the classic downhills, and the Hahnenkamm and Wengen combineds, something no man has since done. 

Jean-Claude Killy of France won 12 out of the 17 slalom, giant slalom and downhill races that made up the 1967 World Cup season. He was the victor in all the classic downhills, and the Hahnenkamm and Wengen combineds, something no man has since done. For the whole season, he participated in 29 races, and won an amazing 19 (66 percent) of them. He finished on the podium in 86 percent of the competitions he entered. He also won six of the season’s downhill-slalom "paper" combineds.

Killy won the first World Cup crystal trophy with a perfect 225 points, the maximum possible in a system in which a racer, who’d won three races in a discipline, could not earn more points in it. First-place was worth 25 points, compared to 100 points today. His one-man World Cup point total topped that of a whole nation—Italy, West Germany or the United States. 

In 1965 in SKI Magazine, Serge Lang had crowned him with the nickname “King Killy,” a title repeated by newspapers and magazines around the world. Last summer, the “King,” 73, invited me to his home near Geneva. On the table in front of us Killy spread open neatly organized, thick albums of press clippings displaying the highlights of his exceptional career. Written in upright handwriting in the notebook containing his race results, is the sentence “La victoire aime l’effort” (Victory loves effort). Over several hours of conversation, he was once again the best skier on the planet.

INTERVIEW: Part 1

Jean-Claude, how do you look back at your 1967 season, and how did it come together after what had occurred in the previous seasons?

If the World Cup hadn’t been invented, my 1967 season might not have been what it was. It was a greater achievement than my 1968 gold-medal hat trick at the Grenoble Winter Olympics, for which most people remember me.  

I got there by a slow process of building. My constant obsession was winning. I managed to pull off a couple of wins, like the Critérium de la Première Neige in 1961 when I was 18 years old. In 1963, I finished in second place 11 times. And the 1964 Winter Olympic Games in Innsbruck were a technical disaster. I lost the toe piece of my binding in the slalom. In the downhill, my edges weren’t correctly sharpened, and I fell on the first fall-away turn. I finished fifth in the GS. In short, I wasn’t ready. 

The week after the Olympics I won the giant slalom of the Arlberg-Kandahar in Garmisch, Germany, ahead of my American friend Jimmie Heuga. It proved that I’d brought my skiing to a decent base, but there were still kinks to be worked out. 

I hadn’t yet resolved health issues that had affected me since I suffered jaundice when I served as a 2^nd class soldier in the French Army during the Algerian war. I was skinny. I lacked endurance. In Paris, journalist Michel Clare introduced me to Doctor Creff, a specialist in exotic diseases. He found out that I also suffered from
amebiasis, and helped me to recover. But I had to work a lot harder than my teammates to be in top physical shape. 

I also needed a system that would allow me to be successful and consistent in not just one, but all three alpine disciplines—slalom, giant slalom and downhill. Specialization limits the opportunities to win. I wanted to develop a system that would address all of the variables that make alpine ski racing such a complex sport—equipment, start number, ski preparation, snow type, weather conditions and more.  

What made a difference?

A key challenge was equipment. It’s crucial to have the best. You can’t allow yourself to lose because of your skis. I skied on two different brands, Rossignol and Dynamic, without having an exclusive contract with either company. It allowed me to choose the pair of skis that would be best for each race. 

At the 1966 World Championships in Portillo, Chile, I used Rossignols in the GS, and Dynamics for the other events. In 1963, in the Kandahar, I even finished second on a pair of Austrian downhill skis.  I was prepared to make financial sacrifices so that I’d be free to use the equipment I wanted.

Above all, I was helped when the Dynamic ski company hired Michel Arpin to take care of my skis. He was from the town of Saint-Foy-Tarentaise, right near my hometown of Val d’Isère. We spoke the same local dialect. Michel had an amazing practical intelligence. Like me, he’d dropped out of high school at 15. When we started our collaboration, I told him: we will make fewer mistakes because we are going to know more than the others. I trusted Michel completely, and I knew that my skis were in the best possible hands.

Describe the process that took you to the top.

As members of the French national team, we spent the whole winter together. But before the first fall training camp we each pursued our own way of doing things. I was on a personal, obsessive quest to figure out what would help me improve, fueled by an overwhelming passion for skiing focused on racing. I opted not to continue my studies. I dropped out of high school. For many young racers, it’s a questionable decision. It limits your options, and can complicate finding a career after ski racing. For me, though, racing was a healthy obsession. It didn’t lessen my ability to think on my own. My aim was to be a free man. Skiing became my profession. 

Winning was all that mattered. I didn’t have a choice. It was simply my only form of expression. France’s head coach Honoré Bonnet understood that. The goal was to win races. 

What were the keys to your success?

Beginning in 1965, several factors came together, fueling the French national team’s growing momentum. The organizational talent and coaching of our leader Honoré Bonnet was one factor that helped us. Another was support from French ski industry—manufacturers like Rossignol and Dynamic skis, Trappeur boots, Salomon and Look bindings. French ski resorts and hotel owners also welcomed us with open arms, charging us next to nothing for lodging and meals. The atmosphere in France at the time was incredibly supportive of ski racing. 

“Our athletes are our best ambassadors,” declared France’s President General Charles de Gaulle. All of a sudden we went from the dormitories of a simple UCPA outdoor center to four-star hotels.

It was the beginning of a golden age for the sport. . . a convergence of increased financial resources, the right people, and experienced professionals. Plus, television broadcasting had gone international, transforming athletes into stars.

In 1965, after nine wins and seven second-place finishes, I was voted the Martini Skieur d’Or, and Champion of Champions by the newspaper L’Equipe. One by one, I’d assembled the pieces of the puzzle.

What was the impact of the World Cup’s creation on the outcome of your incredible 1967 season?

The specific formula and name for the World Cup didn’t come from the racers, but the idea—the force for change—did. Racers were exasperated that their entire careers could depend on a single day’s result in the Winter Olympics, or once every four years when a separate FIS World Championships were held. Nothing big happened in odd-numbered years. Careers were short. Few racers enjoyed the chance to ski in two Olympics. We often discussed our frustration, and what could solve the problem. 

We were all fans of Formula 1 car racing, in which the best are determined by accumulated results over a season-long competition. So it was easy for us to embrace the plan for a World Cup of Alpine Skiing formulated in 1966 by journalist Serge Lang, collaborating with   America’s Bob Beattie, France’s Honoré Bonnet, and Austria’s Sepp Sulzberger, supported by the Paris-based sport daily l’Equipe and journalists like Michel Clare—and John Fry, who added the Nations Cup to the mix. 

During the August 1966 World Alpine Championships at Portillo, Chile, FIS President Marc Hodler gave it the green light. It would enable us to accumulate points in a series of races, including the classics of the Kandahar, Kitzbühel and Wengen, as well as races every winter in America. The mineral water company Evian supplied beautiful crystal trophies. 

At Portillo, I remember being in the finish area of the downhill after my gold medal win. Everyone was crying. Serge Lang said to me, “The World Cup is coming. What’s your strategy going to be?”

“I’m going to fly through it,” I answered. “It’s going to be a lot of fun.” In my mind, I was going to get the most out of the new system in order to take my sports career to a new level. From then on, more than just the big classic events in the Alps would be the measure of a successful season.  

How would you describe the relations among members of the French team?

We trained together and we competed against each other every weekend. Even to this day, we’re like brothers. 

In the spring of 1966, we skied run after run together on the Pissaillas glacier at the Col de l’Iseran, preparing for Portillo, Chile—the only FIS World Alpine Championships ever held in the southern hemisphere. Our different strengths and personalities helped us to support each other. There was always a deep feeling of mutual respect and humility. 

Our inspirational leader Bonnet, 47, a year away from retiring, had put in place a system that functioned superbly, both for the men and for our great women’s team at the time. Each member of the team had his own role. Michel Arpin took care of my skis and did timekeeping. I could fully rely on his technical expertise. 

Jules Melquiond brought to the team a calm, serene temperament; we were roommates for seven years, and we never had even the most minor ego clash. Team captain Guy Périllat was listened to and respected. Léo Lacroix contributed his optimism, good humor, and especially his talent. Georges Mauduit, the giant slalom specialist, and Louis Jauffret, the slalom specialist, were magnificent skiers.

All of these talents, plus the combination of our different temperaments, made for a tremendous and cohesive squad.

The 1967 season began in December 1966 at your home resort of Val d’Isère, with the traditional Critérium de la Première Neige . . .

The race was special that year because it was the first time it was held on the new Daille run, called Oreiller-Killy or OK, which I had helped to design. (Editor's note: Henri Oreiller was 1948 Olympic downhill gold medalist.) Léo Lacroix, who won the race, still laughs when he recalls it today. “I’m the only one to have beaten Killy in downhill in the 1967 season,” he says. I remind him that it was in December 1966. The Critérium didn’t yet count for World Cup points. The World Cup didn’t begin until January 5^th at Berchtesgaden, Germany, where I finished third in the GS. 

Your first success came a couple of days later in the GS at Adelboden, Switzerland, the first in a series of eight victories, counting the Combined. You went on to win twice (downhill and slalom) at Wengen, also in Switzerland. What was the importance of this double win?

At Adelboden, I won with the GS with bib number 13. It was no bad luck for me! Adelboden has always been a benchmark for the GS. Winning there confirms a certain level of physical training and technical skill. In any season, too, the first win is significant.

At Wengen, in the downhill on the Lauberhorn, I was 25 hundredths of a second faster than Léo Lacroix. It was the first French victory in the Lauberhorn since Guy Périllat’s win in 1961. It was even sweeter because the Austrians, who maybe thought our triumph in the World Championships five months earlier at Portillo was a fluke, were expecting us to fail. It was an important moment for the whole French team.

At Wengen I also dominated the slalom, which I felt was the steepest and hardest of the year. With this triple victory-—I won the combined—I got the impression that I was finally playing in the big leagues for good. The next week would be the incredible challenge of Kitzbühel.  

In the March-April 2017 issue of Skiing History, we’ll present the second part of this exclusive interview with 1967 World Cup overall men's alpine champion Jean-Claude Killy, plus an interview by journalist Michel Beaudry with Nancy Greene-Raine of Canada, who won the 1967 women’s overall World Cup title. The World Cup is celebrating its 50th anniversary this season.

Interview by Yves Perret
Yves Perret, who heads a sports media agency in Grenoble, is the former sports editor of the Dauphiné Libéré newspaper, and was editor-in-chief of Ski Chrono.