Vol. 35, No. 5 September-October 2023

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FEATURES

18 Innsbruck Crossroads

Bob Beattie and Howard Head didn’t agree on much, other than winning.

BY DAVID BUTTERFIELD

DEPARTMENTS

4 Readers Respond

A-Basin’s Freda Nieters, and a delivery 76 years late.

5 Short Turns

The steep and bumpy marriage of skiing and cycling; Mikaela Shiffrin wins again; The art of Maksim Gaspari.

8 Classics

The 1970s revolution in ski instruction.

BY DOUG PFEIFFER

10 Where Are They Now?

Ivica Kostelić: from snow to sea.

BY PATRICK LANG

13 Ski Pioneers

The live-saving work of John Lawton.

BY JEFF BLUMENFELD

15 Technique

The rise and fall (and rise?) of Wedeln.

BY HORST ABRAHAM

27 ISHA News

Fundraising update; museum grant applications now open.

28 Media Reviews

Sven Coomer’s around-the-world education.

29 Museum News

Laurentian Museum’s new home.

30 Remembering

Farewell to ski pioneers Doug Pfeiffer, Conrad Klefos and James Crown.

23 Majoring in Speed

Today’s World Cuppers are likely to come out of NCAA programs.

BY EDIE THYS MORGAN

ON THE COVER

Emil Schulthess pushed the era’s travel poster format with his 1937 promotion piece for Pontresina, Switzerland. Limited use of color focuses attention on the joy of a sunny day in the Alps.

SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, J. WILLARD MARRIOTT LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF UTAH

Arapahoe Basin’s Freda Nieters

In late July, a celebration was held for the life of Freda

Langell Nieters at Arapahoe Basin Ski Area in Colorado. Oldtimers learned new tales of Freda from other old-timers. Freda had a lifetime of skiing and of contributions to her sport, from girlhood in Oslo to the collegiate team of the University of New Hampshire and winning the intercollegiate downhill championship. She missed an Olympics only because of an injury, yet soon after beat the entire Norway national team. Years later her daughter Ingrid would make up for her mother’s missed Olympics as a cross-country skier in the Lillehammer Olympics. Freda taught as a Nordic instructor and examiner, then in Alpine, primarily at Keystone and Arapahoe Basin resorts. My understanding is that she was also an Alpine examiner for the Professional Ski Instructors of America .

Hank Thiess, former ski school director at Keystone, where he knew Freda, and at several other resorts, explained about Freda, “An organizer, she developed a cadre of older instructors that took sessions with her and young instructors/coaches with the intent of assuring the ski school’s veterans stayed current in their style and knowledge, calling the group “Freda’s Flying Fossils.” And to instructors she coached regarding their students: “They will never care how much you know until they know how much you care!”

It occurs to me that Skiing History readers who knew of Freda would appreciate knowing of her passing, at 91. And those unfortunate enough to not have known her would also appreciate learning of the legacy of a dedicated life-long skier who brought the meaning of camaraderie and joy to the sport for so many.

William R Jones Silverthorne, Colorado

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

During the 1947 Silver Skis race on Mt. Rainier, confusion about the location of the finish line led to a delay in awarding trophies. Don Amick left for home before learning he’d won third place. Early this year, a family in the Yakima Valley sent the engraved platter to the Washington State Ski & Snowboard Museum, which sent it on to Russ Amick, shown here, a mere 76 years after his father finished the race.

EDITOR

Seth Masia

MANAGING EDITOR

Greg Ditrinco

ART DIRECTOR

Edna Baker

CONSULTING EDITOR

Cindy Hirschfeld

EDITORIAL BOARD

Seth Masia, Chair John Allen, Andy Bigford, John Caldwell, Jeremy Davis, Kirby Gilbert, Paul Hooge, Jeff Leich, Bob Soden

FOUNDING EDITORS

Morten Lund, Glenn Parkinson

To preserve skiing history and to increase awareness of the sport’s heritage

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Rick Moulton, Chairman Seth Masia, President

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Christin Cooper, Billy Kidd, Jean-Claude Killy, Bode Miller, Doug Pfeiffer, Penny Pitou, Nancy Greene Raine, Lindsey Vonn

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Not-StraNge Bedfellows: Skiing and Cycling

A condensed history of their wild marriage.

BY JAY COWAN

Skiing and cycling have a long history of a symbiotic fit for elite athletes and casual enthusiasts. The two sports sync easily with their alternating seasons and effective cross-training results, along with the same primal thrill of gravity-powered flight. It’s a natural relationship.

The origin story of the bicycle isn’t attributed to any single inventor. An early “wooden horse” could be seen in the 1790s tooling around the Palais Royal in Paris. In 1818, German baron Karl von Drais was awarded a patent on his twowheel, steerable Velocipede, which has led to him being called the father of the bicycle.

That bicycle DNA took to the slopes in the U.S. in 1892, when the first patent was issued for a skibob. The Ice Velocipede was essentially a converted bicycle—with a steerable ski (or skate blade) in the front, a second ski under the pedals and a studded drive wheel at the rear. It appears, however, that the Ice Velocipede was never manufactured (an 1863 version was a converted penny-farthing high-wheeler).

The first produced versions of the U.S. skibobs were made of wood and included a front ski attached to a steerable bicycle-style handlebar. A second ski was positioned under the seat in a straight line behind the front ski. The rider was outfitted with mini-skis on each foot, equipped with metal claws on the undersides of the tails for braking. They were heavy, clunky and fast, with only the illusion of control once the rider really got moving.

Look and Time magazines wrote about them in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The skibobs also showed up in liquor ads around the same time. Californian William Cartwright tirelessly promoted them and formed the Skibob Club of Santa Rosa in 1965.

Skibobbing remained popular in Europe and had a cameo appearance in the Beatles 1964 movie A Hard Day’s Night. The sport did have its moments in America, including hosting its World Championships in 1971 at Mount Rose, Nevada. But despite endorsements from the likes of Vail co-founder Earl Eaton, interest in skibobbing stalled, with some resorts banning the devices outright. While the United States Skibob Federation dissolved in the mid-’70s, there is now a U.S. Skibob Association (skibobusa.com),and NASTAR has a skibob division.

Also in the 1970s, early versions of mountain bikes first appeared in Crested Butte, Colorado, and Mill Valley, California, and soon became a counter-seasonal diversion for skiers and ski resorts alike. Early adopters at ski resorts installed bike carriers on ski lifts and then learned that if you allow bikes to the summits, you need designated downhill trails to avoid dangerous congestion on cat tracks and service roads, and free-wheeling damage to ski terrain.

It didn’t take long for resorts to recognize a business opportunity, and ski areas worldwide began clearing single-track biking trails for summertime visitors. Vermont’s Mount Snow opened one of the early lift-accessed, purpose-built bike parks

Left to right: The bicycle’s family tree branched out to the ski-bob in the U.S. during the 1960s, including star treatment in mainstream ads. Penny-farthing ice-cycle of 1863 never caught on. Ski bobbing enjoyed early success in Europe, with Swiss riders here heading downhill in 1913.

SKI-BIKE.ORG

in 1986. Whistler Blackcomb was another early adopter, adding bike racks to lifts in the mid-’80s and opening a bike park in 1999. A subgenre of mountain bike emerged, the highspeed downhill bike, with a heavy-duty steering head and shock absorbers, cushy saddle and powerful brakes.

Spurred by resort lobbying and support from major ski states, the U.S. Congress passed the Ski Area Recreational Opportunity Enhancement Act in 2011. Co-sponsored by Colorado U.S. Senators Mark Udall and Michael Bennet, the legislation expanded approved use of Forest Service land to include ziplining, rope courses and bike trails with associated facilities, among other non-winter activities.

Ever-evolving cycling technology now includes fat bikes, with their low-pressure, four-inch-wide tires allowing manageable use on snow. Exhibiting its own upgrades, skibob technology has greatly benefited adaptive skiing in the U.S. The wide range of durable, lightweight sit-skis and outrigger options has greatly expanded the sport.

In January 2018, Austrian cyclist Max Stöckl hit 64 mph on the Hahnenkamm’s Streif course, just prior to race weekend. He used a downhill bike equipped with studded tires. Perhaps showing the natural synergy between biking and skiing, Stöckl, who grew up near Kitzbühel, said he had to “really battle to clear the gates” and felt pressure to avoid crashing just days before the World Cup downhill.

“I wanted to offer the necessary respect by not ruining the work put in by the ski club by knocking out huge sections of fencing,” he said after the ride.

Shiffrin Wins Best Female Athlete Award

Adding to her record-setting year, Mikaela Shiffrin was named best athlete, women’s sports this summer at the 2023 ESPY awards gala.

The honor caps an extraordinary year for Shiffrin. With her 87th World Cup win in March, Shiffrin broke Ingemar

SNAPSHOTS IN TIME

1970 HIDE THOSE BUMPS AND BULGES

The attention-getting power of tight pants paired with big, clunky ski boots has faded. The new head-turners fit sleekly over hips and thighs, but from there down, the line stovepipes or flares. Fewer bumps and bulges—now they can be hidden. It’s the year of the peacock for everyone, men included. The skier who stepped out of a mold is gone, we hope, forever. — CATHIE JUDGE, “KICKY NEW PANTS” (SKIING MAGAZINE, JANUARY 1970)

1988 SPEED TRAP?

What has brought joy to users has become a mixed blessing to resort owners. The new high-speed quads cost two or three

Stenmark’s revered 86-win record that stood for 34 years. Not done yet, Shiffrin went on to add her 88th victory on the final day of the 2022–23 season. She also was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People for 2023.

As she has done throughout her career, Shiffrin deflected attention from herself at the awards ceremony and—again— noted that records aren’t her priority. “Through failure and through success, it’s been a long journey, and it’s not over yet,” Shiffrin said from the stage.

Mikaela Shiffrin strikes a familiar pose: accepting an award. In this case, ESPN’s best female athlete of 2023.

“This season was absolutely incredible, and there was a lot of talk about records," she continued. "It got me thinking, ‘Why is a record actually important?’ And I just feel like it’s not important to break records or reset records. It’s important to set the tone for the next generation to inspire them.”

Shiffrin is only the second skier to win the best athlete ESPY award. Lindsey Vonn won back-to-back honors in 2010 and 2011. On the way to breaking Stenmark’s record, Shiffrin first eclipsed Vonn’s women’s World Cup mark of 82 wins.

Professional sports’ version of the Oscars, the made-fortelevision annual ESPY awards ceremony features glamorous red-carpet entrances, a packed celebrity audience and viral videos of acceptance speeches.

Stenmark has predicted that Shiffrin, 28, will reach 100 wins. She begins the defense of her overall 2023 World Cup crown in October at the traditional start of the race season in Sölden, Austria. —Greg Ditrinco

times more than the old lifts and their complex machinery makes them costlier to maintain. And when a quad replaces a conventional double chairlift, it dumps twice as many people onto the same amount of terrain. — JOHN FRY, “LIFE IN THE FAST CHAIR” (SNOW COUNTRY, OCTOBER 1988.)

1990 TERRAIN HOGS: EXPERT OR BEGINNER?

Who needs the most terrain on a mountain—the beginner or expert skier? Expert and beginner skiers pay the same for a lift ticket, but an expert gets more runs and uses more terrain. An average beginner manages 2,000 to 4,000 vertical feet in a day, compared to 10,000 to 12,000 feet for an intermediate and 20,000 to 30,000 for an expert. According to Sno.engineering, one acre of steep expert terrain will take care of three skiers at one time, but a one-acre beginner slope can accommodate as many as 20 skiers trying to master the sport. — ROBIN DAWSON, “HOW MUCH?” (SNOW COUNTRY, NOVEMBER 1990)

SKIING MAGAZINE

SKI ART

Maksim Gaspari (1883–1980)

The long-lasting popularity of Maksim Gaspari’s work is due to his ability to portray a traditional Slovenian rural culture as it moved into the modern world of efficiency. His images of the lasting joys of farming, of gathering mushrooms and fruits, of village characters—the world of yesteryear—still appear on calendars, and, in 1993, on a postage stamp.

His work is almost, it seems, an insistence to political leaders to not spoil those craggy hills up north on the Austrian border, to preserve the rolling meadows around Bloke and to enjoy Selšček, about an hour south of Laibach, Slovenia’s capital when Gaspari was born (now known as Ljubljana).

The image clearly shows Gaspari’s understanding of Bloke skiing, something that was known since Slovenian historian Johan von Valvasor’s 1689 description. Of particular interest is the detail of the short and wide skis, the single strap over the toe of the boot and the style of wielding the pole. The girl obviously has not got it right, and she is also slightly off balance on her skis. The simple winter clothing of the Bloke peasant gives the painting its folk aspect and is typical of Gaspari’s work.

As a postscript, a similar scene was also used as an advertisement for the Liebig meat company, and since a number of well-known artists were commissioned to illustrate trade cards with, often, historical and geographical themes, I suspect Gaspari was among them. –

E. John B. Allen

Maksim Gaspari's art earned a following with its warm embrace of traditional Slovenian rural culture. His work frequently included an accurate depiction of skiing and the rural winter lifestyle.

1993 MORE ASPEN THAN ASPEN

For the past several years, all the media hype about Telluride has made me avoid it entirely. There were horror stories of Oprah Winfrey’s $3 million “log cabin” and Sly Stallone’s custom-made Range Rover; reports of Donald and Marla’s slopeside trysts and a new spa as big and gaudy as a Las Vegas casino. There was a sea of condominiums, I’d heard, and a whole new population more gentrified than Aspen. — PAM HOUSTON, “SAVING GRACES” (SKIING MAGAZINE, DECEMBER 1993)

2015 THE NOISE OF DOWNHILL SUCCESS

In an Alpine downhill race, there is no more lonely and solitary position than standing over a pair of skis hurtling down the mountain at 80 miles an hour.

The racer’s only companion is noise. In the merciless and nervy world of the downhill—the original extreme winter sport—sometimes the louder things get, the better. During a

fast and sleek descent, the wind whistles around the body and through the small breaches in a skier’s helmet, creating an unmistakably shrill whistle that is one of several welcomed audio responses every competitor uses as feedback. — BILL PENNINGTON, “IN DELICATE DANCE WITH GRAVITY, DOWNHILL RACERS ARE SOOTHED BY CACOPHONY” (NEW YORK TIMES, FEBRUARY 5, 2015)

2023 $300 DAY-TICKET BARRIER BREACHED

Over the weekend, walk-up lift ticket rates at Arizona’s Snowbowl came in at $309 a pop. That’s not for a season pass. It’s for one day of skiing on the resort’s 55 runs. So, what gives? Dynamic pricing is what. Long a staple of the airline industry, dynamic pricing lets sellers jack up the rates when demand is high, penalizing people who didn’t plan ahead. — SAM BERMAN, “THE SKI AREA THAT BROKE THE $300/DAY LIFT TICKET BARRIER IS NOT ONE YOU’D EXPECT” (SKIMAG.COM, JANUARY 23, 2023)

Revolution in Ski Teaching

Is this the year to go back to ski school?

BY DOUG PFEIFFER

Reprinted from the November 1971 issue of Skiing magazine.

The Crisis in Ski Teaching— A Revolution Is Needed: Ski Instruction Is All Wrong

If All the World’s Ski Instructors Suddenly Disappeared, Would Anyone Really Miss Them? Would Anyone Care?

Up until a year ago, any of the above lines might have been an apt title to this article. Oh, sure, there were good individual instructors here and there, in this country and abroad. But organized instruction the world over was hung up on the Final Form Syndrome: Your hands had to be here, your pole planted there, you had to do this with the downhill shoulder, do that with the hip and observe a half-dozen other bits of body position dogma.

But now, new-think has hit the slopes. The youngbloods have triumphed. We’ve got short skis. And still shorter skis. And all kinds of Graduated Length Methods. And we’ve got avalement and jet christies and sit-back techniques and anticipation and square stance. And new designs in equipment. And instructors trying out this new equipment, actually trying to ski these new ways. And they don’t have to go over to the backside of the mountain where the fuddy-duddy ski school director won’t see them. They’ve been demonstrating these new techniques to one another at their official symposia and clinics, both here and in Europe. At last, there’s hope.

Unfortunately, the adoption of the signs of progress does not necessarily mean victory for the substance of progress. A case in point: GLM, the much-vaunted system (justifiably, in our view) of learning to ski with short skis and progressing to longer ones. This season, in the USA alone, more than 100 schools will be teaching some version of GLM. There’s Clif Taylor’s method of some 10 years standing: Lock the feet

together, then swivel the feet or the legs or the knees or the hips or the whole body, depending on the kind of turn you want. A legs-glued-together, pivot-under-foot turn, turn, turn technique. And you’ve got the Karl Pfeiffer, ex-Killington Ski School GLM, now Headway system. Wide stance, independent leg action, some reliance on snowplow-stem progression. Both these systems start you out on three-footers, let you putter around fruitfully for a day or so, then move you up to four-footers. You move to longer skis only as you develop strength to handle more lumber.

Then there’s the Vail approach—standard teaching on five-footers. And the Aspen-Breckenridge-Sun Valley approach—standard on four-and-a-half footers. Or Paul Valar’s four- and five-footers. And so on.

Which makes one wonder. Hans Thorner (Magic Mountain, Vt.) was quoted as saying he was going to GLM because “you’ve got to give customers what they want. You can’t buck a trend.” But what is the trend? Simply to use shorter skis? That’s a good thing in itself, of course. Anything shorter than the skis a racer or instructor uses is an improvement. For years, there have been men around like Professor Frank Salymosi who have done studies to show how much stronger the twisting muscles of even a girl ski teacher’s legs are than those of a football player or weightlifter. Why anyone should expect the sedentary layman just taking up the sport to have the muscle power to twist those long appendages is a mystery; but at least those days are over.

But GLM should be more than simply chopping a few feet off the long boards. Put on three-footers an intermediate skier who can’t shake his stem, and with the proper remedial exercises, he’ll learn how to turn them both at the same time. But if instead of the proper remedial exercises, he gets more of the down-up-down, drop your shoulder, hold your hands here, put your pole there final form nonsense, the short skis won’t help a bit. Similarly, the beginning GLM student may find himself in just another New American Official National Modern System Technique.

The crux of what’s been wrong with ski teaching is that by and large there have been too few teachers (T-E-A-C-H-

But all too few have made any study of how people learn.

The crux of what’s been wrong with ski teaching is that by and large there have been too few teachers (T-E-A-C-H-E-R-S, that is) involved with the sport. Instruction has been dominated by ex-racers, excoaches, ski businessmen—good skiers all. Often conscientious would-be teachers.

E-R-S, that is) involved with the sport. Instruction has been dominated by ex-racers, ex-coaches, ski businessmen—good skiers all. Often conscientious would-be teachers. But all too few have made any study of how people learn. It may not be necessary for them to have read Pavlov and Watson and be familiar with terms like conditioned reflex and gestalt (though it wouldn’t hurt!) to be effective teachers. But a syllabus, a recommended learning progression that doesn’t take into consideration such things as the conditions most conducive for a transfer of training, the moment of readiness, the need to learn at one’s own pace—individual differences, in a phrase—or the effect of motivation on the rate of learning, such a syllabus is doomed to failure. The emphasis in ski instruction has been on technique. And on maneuvers. Instruction is still hung up on some of the paper logic laid down by Hannes Schneider, the famous Father of Ski Teaching, who developed the original ski technique—The Arlberg Technique—some 50-60 years ago. That logic held that first you learned the snowplow, then the snowplow turn, then the stem turn, then the stem christie and finally (but only after 30 years of development had taken place did he begin to concede you could learn) the parallel christie. Neat. Ordered. Logical.

And all cockeyed. A progression of maneuvers would make sense only if one could demonstrate a transfer of skills from one maneuver to another. As generations of skiers have learned, the snowplow is so totally different from the parallel christie, it is a devil of a job to unlearn it. Yet, teaching skiing has become synonymous to many teachers with forcing people into the maneuver mold. Instead, I submit, learning to ski is in large measure a matter of developing specific muscles for basic skills. Yet, where do you even find these basic skills defined? Skills like edge control. Or weight control—being able

to move your weight forward or backward or from side to side, as needed. Skills like ski and foot manipulation, which come from just plain walking around with your skis on. The skills needed for balance.

If these skills are not even defined by the instructors, it’s small wonder there has been scant research to see which ones are involved in skiing, how much they need to be developed, how they can be developed. Admittedly, many a fine ski instructor has an intuitive grasp of what’s involved. He may go through the maneuver-teaching sequence, but in the process he manages to get the skills across to his charges. But it’s almost accidental, for the emphasis on final forms focuses the teacher’s attention—and therefore the student’s attention— on the wrong things. After all, if a person can control his edges, can balance himself fore and aft and side to side, then the maneuvers of skiing become simple.

Now that ski schools are finally abandoning so many of the old absolutes (weight doesn’t have to be on the downhill ski, weight doesn’t have to be on the fronts of the skis, shoulders don’t have to be facing down the valley, etc.) there is hope. Take a look at the instructors at your area. Are they still skiing automaton style, locked into a rigid Wedeln? Or have they turned loose, making those wild, smooth, sinewy turns that characterize today’s hot shots? If they’ve come out of hiding, by all means, go take a lesson. Then odds are in your favor that you’ll learn more this year—at any level—than you would have last season. Enough so, perhaps, that you may want to become a ski instructor yourself.

A founder of PSIA, freestyle skiing pioneer and influential magazine editor, Doug Pfeiffer recently died at 96 after a distinguished career. See Remembering, page 30.

As generations of skiers have learned, the snowplow is so totally different from the parallel christie, it is a devil of a job to unlearn it. Yet, teaching skiing has become synonymous to many teachers with forcing people into the maneuver mold.

BOB SODEN

An inventive crusader against the Final Form Syndrome in instruction, Doug Pfeiffer supported a looser, more individualized approach to teaching skiing.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

Ivica Kostelić, the Sailor

From an island in the Adriatic, a World Cup champion plots his future course. BY PATRICK

LANG

The typical ski champion retires as a resort-town business owner, ski coach or TV commentator. But a handful find success outside of skiing entirely. France’s overall 1997 World Cup champion Luc Alphand became a brilliant rally driver, clinching the legendary ParisDakar race in 2006. Austria’s super G ace Christoph Gruber is now a pilot for the Tyrol Air Ambulance group. Dominique Gisin, the Swiss Olympic downhill champion in 2014, is also a professional pilot, with a degree in physics from the ETH Zurich.

Ivica Kostelić, winner of seven Olympic and FIS medals, including gold in the 2003 slalom World Championship and the 2011 overall World Cup title, retired in 2017. He’s now 43 years old, the father of four and a rising star in longdistance ocean racing. Skippering his Class 40 sloop, he won once and finished second twice in the first three races this summer. He has a strong chance to win the 2023 Mediterranean Trophy.

Early in his skiing career, he was mostly known as the older brother of the phenomenal Janica Kostelić. Three years younger than “Ivo,” Janica was only 17 when she celebrated her first World Cup victory in January 1999, capturing the combined event at St. Anton am Arlberg, in Austria. Her career nearly ended in December of that year when she blew out her right knee during a terrible crash while training downhill at St. Moritz, Switzerland. After a year of hard rehab, she won the first slalom of the 2001 season, at Park City, Utah, and went on to

win eight consecutive slaloms and clinch the first of her three overall World Cup titles at the 2001 Finals at Åre, Sweden.

Ivica would need more patience. After his own knee injury in 1999, he scored his first World Cup victory the day after his 22nd birthday, at Aspen in November 2001. Starting the slalom with bib number 64, he crushed the favorites, including Italian star Giorgio Rocca and reigning world champion Mario Matt from Austria, who later captured the second slalom on Sunday, ahead of Bode Miller.

For the rest of the 2002 season, Miller and Kostelić battled hard on the World Cup circuit and at the Olympics in Salt Lake City. Bode left Utah with two silver medals, in giant slalom and combined. Kostelić didn’t finish his Olympic slalom run but faced off with Miller in a nerve-wracking duel at the World Cup Finals in Flachau, Austria. There, he beat Miller by a few tenths to secure his first slalom globe.

Over the next 15 years, and despite 14 knee injuries, Kostelić remained a star. He claimed the FIS gold medal in slalom at St Moritz 2003, a day after his sister’s gold medal. He clinched his first Olympic medal in combined, behind Ted Ligety, at Sestriere, Italy, in 2006. On January 5, 2003, he won the slalom at Kranjska Gora, Slovenia. (It also was Janica’s 21st birthday, and she won at Bormio that day.) Able to win in both slalom and super G, he won the Hahnenkamm combined trophy four times in a row, from 2010 to 2013.

In January 2011 Kostelić won a spectacular super G, set on the lower part of the treacherous Streif run at Kitzbühel,

Winner of the 2011 overall World Cup title, Croatian racer Ivica Kostelić was one of the top alpine skiers of his generation. Above: Kostelić’s new passion: long-distance ocean racing.

IVICA KOSTELIC

IVICA KOSTELIC

Austria. That month he achieved a total of seven World Cup wins at four venues, including in parallel slalom at Munich. That’s some kind of a record on the men’s tour! This extraordinary accomplishment helped Kostelić to secure his overall World Cup title that year—a stunning performance for a slalom specialist from Croatia. He also took the championships in slalom and combined, then repeated the combined title the following two years. In February 2012, the World Cup traveled to Sochi for the pre-Olympic series; Kostelić won the combined, then injured his knee in the downhill. At the time he stood 218 points ahead of Marcel Hirscher in the overall World Cup standings but was sidelined for 11 races and had to be content with a disappointing fourth place at the end of the season. He claimed two more wins on the World Cup tour the following year, in combined and slalom at Kitzbühel and Kranjska Gora, plus the silver medal in combined at Sochi in 2014, before slowly fading. He retired in February 2017 to pursue other goals and take better care of his family.

With four Olympic silver medals, from 2006 to 2014, in slalom and combined and five crystal globes, as well as 27 victories and 67 podiums in several World Cup specialties, Kostelić was among the greatest performers in modern ski racing.

Like Swiss downhiller Peter Mueller and Italian ace Alberto Tomba, Janica and Ivica Kostelić were city kids—rare birds among top skiers. They grew up in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, and trained at Sljeme, a small hill of 300 vertical meters (1,000 feet) just outside of the city. The area had a racing tradition, and from 2005 to last winter, some exciting World Cup races took place there.

Papa Ante Kostelić was a world-class handball player, a

member of the Yugoslav national team and a coach at Cannes on the French Riviera. He enjoyed masters-level ski racing, too. And he was a voracious reader of books on physical and mental training written by established experts, especially from the Eastern Bloc. He shared his knowledge and experience with Janica and Ivica, who proved gifted in coordination, balance and dedication.

In those days, most Yugoslavian ski racers came from Slovenia, the northernmost province, which has the Julian Alps. Croatia is better known for its long Adriatic seacoast. The Kostelić family also faced major logistic and economic problems when the Independence War started in 1991.

To make a living in those terrible days, Ante took up spear fishing in the Adriatic Sea, off the stunning island of Mljet, about an hour by boat from Dubrovnik, where he owned an off-grid cabin. He sold fish to restaurants on the larger island of Korcula nearby. He’d been taking the kids there since they were infants. Ivo began spearfishing at an early age and was an expert at 12. The kids also learned to sail in a dinghy and could circumnavigate the island.

They could ski train in summer and fall on distant Austrian glaciers, but it was expensive. Early on, the young kids usually slept in a tent or in Ante’s old Lada car. To save money, they often walked up the glaciers above Kaprun instead of riding the cable cars. Lift operators on the glaciers sometimes let them ski for free.

At age 16, Janica scored some promising results at the 1998 Nagano Olympics in Japan. When former ski racer Vedran Pavlek retired to become manager of the young Croatian Ski Association, he was able to organize a pool of major

Kostelić sees his transition from elite skiing to elite sailing as not unexpected. “Sailing is a different way to enjoy nature,” he says. “You are actively using the power of nature for your own propulsion.”

With four Olympic silver medals, from 2006 to 2014, as well as 27 victories and 67 podiums in several World Cup specialties, Kostelić was among the greatest performers in modern ski racing.

IVICA KOSTELIC

IVICA KOSTELIC

sponsors, including Salomon, which provided excellent tools to the Kostelić kids.

In summer 2001, a few months after her glorious triumph in the overall World Cup standings, I spent a few days with Ante and Janica at their cabin in Mljet. That month, Ivica was returning to snow at Zermatt after another injury he sustained in January, a few weeks after scoring his first World Cup points in slalom at Sestriere. He regularly phoned his dad to report on his physical and technical progress, and Ante diligently recorded his comments in big notebooks. “I have many of them—I am writing down everything concerning their career as athletes,” said Ante at the time. “Ivica is doing fine. I trust him to finally break through this winter,” he added with a grin. And that fall in Aspen, that’s exactly what happened.

Kostelić became a great defender of tradition in Alpine ski racing, claiming that the best racers need to compete in all specialties. He also defended the combined race and was not afraid to criticize the establishment in matters of course settings and general organization of the sport. Like Miller and former greats Pirmin Zurbriggen and Marc Girardelli, Kostelić enjoyed competing in all disciplines.

He was also great fun. One of the highlights of that exciting 2002 season was to see him jumping on the concert stage in the finish area at Adelboden, Switzerland, after finishing second in the slalom behind Miller. Borrowing a guitar from one of the musicians, he did a creditable Chuck Berry turn, singing “Johnny Be Good” as the audience cheered. Nowadays, he often tours with a pick-up band, including, as drummer, Canada’s Jan Hudec, Olympic bronze medalist in super G at Sochi.

Always looking for new challenges, immediately after hanging up his race skis, Kostelić crossed Greenland on skis with a friend. They took 18 days to cover 582 kilometers (360 miles) in freezing weather and strong winds—a physically punishing trip.

Kostelić still felt strongly driven to compete at a top level but knew he needed a sport that wouldn’t stress his knees. Eventually, he discovered the thrill of offshore sailing and racing.

“Sailing is a different way to enjoy nature,” he explains. “It’s a bit similar with skiing, as you are inside nature all the

time and you are actively using the power of nature for your own propulsion. It’s a constant dialog with the wind, and it inspires you in many different ways.” He adds, “Nothing is comparable to the sea. The sea is freedom. And we have lost a lot of freedom in today’s world. And the fact that you are sitting on a floating object, raise a piece of cloth and sail around the world for zero dollars says a lot about sailing.”

Kostelić’s Class 40 yacht is a high-performance sloop designed for offshore racing with a solo skipper or two-person crew. He spent a year sailing on his own, making mistakes and learning from them, then began racing in the summer of 2022. More mistakes, more learning. In November that year he had to drop out of a single-handed transatlantic race, the Route du Rhum, after storm damage took out his autopilot. Kostelić loves the challenge, comparing it to racing downhill. “The Streif is a super-difficult slope to ski, even if you are not racing,” he says. “Crossing an ocean as well. But racing makes those things so much more difficult.” In skiing, he continues, “the top 30 are separated by only a few seconds, so you really must put a very strong effort to be able to race well. The performance level on the ocean is not that high, but it’s quite different because, after you finish the Streif, you go back to the hotel, and take a nice little shower, and have a nice dinner, that’s it. When you are done with your day on the ocean, the sun goes down, this doesn’t change anything. You’ll still be wet and miserable, and you’ll still race through the night, through the storm, waves and sleep deprivation, and in this it’s a different sport.”

Whether he wins the Mediterranean Trophy or not, Kostelić will sit out the 2024 racing season. “I have a strong wish to continue racing, because I have started off quite well,” he says. “But I’m taking some time off to be with my family at home. I have a big family now with four little kids. My parents are getting old. It’s getting more difficult to leave home. So I don’t have any bigger plans for the future. I’ll see how things are developing.”

Frequent contributor Patrick Lang wrote about the 2023 FIS Congress in the July-August 2023 issue.

Left: Kostelić comes from a family of elite athletes. His younger sister, Janica, won the overall World Cup title three times and his father competed on the Yugoslav national handball team. Above: Always striving for challenges, Kostelić crossed Greenland on skis after retiring, covering 360 miles in 18 days.

IVICA KOSTELIC

IVICA KOSTELIC

Skadi Man

WWII vet, inventor of the Skadi avalanche transceiver reflects on his invention at the age of 100.

BY JEFF BLUMENFELD

John Lawton’s apartment at an assisted living facility in Louisville, Colorado, is filled with mementos: a flag that flew over the U.S. Capitol, models of B-17 and Messerschmitt aircraft, and a framed letter from Rick Gray, a guide at Canadian Mountain Holidays (CMH). The letter, dated February 1972, reports the successful rescue of two skiers injured in an avalanche. One was buried and would have died had he not been extricated quickly.

“If we hadn’t had the Skadis,” Gray wrote, “it would have been at least 20 to 30 minutes before we could have organized a proper probing and may have been at least another 10 minutes before the victim would have been located. … I am almost positive that during that time lapse this man would have completely suffocated.”

Lawton would later write to Lou Dawson, a Colorado skier and mountaineer who founded the website Wild Snow, that it was “the first save by means of Skadi and, as far as I know, by any avalanche rescue beacon.”

At age 13, Hans Georg Lowenstein survived Kristallnacht in Vienna and fled to England with his family, eventually emigrating to the U.S. Anglicizing his name, John George Lawton attended the City College of New York without having graduated high school. At 18, after Pearl Harbor, he tried to enlist in the U.S. Army but was turned down as an “enemy alien.”

By 1943, the army wasn’t so picky. Lawton was drafted after three years of college and assigned to a reconnaissance team in the 91st Infantry Division, then training in Oregon. The division had further intense training in North Africa and, beginning in July 1944, fought its way across mountainous terrain in Italy from Rome to Leghorn to Pisa to the Po Valley. It broke the German Gothic Line and finished the war in Trieste.

Back home, Lawton finished college at MIT, then earned his Ph.D. in electrical engineering at Cornell University. While working on classified communications and missileguidance systems at the Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory, he married, had seven kids, earned a pilot’s license and continued his lifelong passion for skiing.

During a ski holiday at Alta, Utah, Lawton encountered the pioneering snow ranger Ed LaChapelle, who was then experimenting with avalanche rescue, and realized he could design a better system. After months in heavy combat and years of work on classified weapons, says Lawton, “I think it’s nice to have invented a device that saves lives instead of taking them.”

Before Transceivers

Prior to transceivers, avalanche rescue consisted of teams of searchers with wooden probes and avalanche cords. The use of probes often proved gruesome. Teeth notched into the ends of the probes helped rescuers determine what was underneath. What came up after turning a probe might be wood bark, or it might be bloody bits of clothing. “It was tough to tell the difference between a human being and a branch that bent,” Lawton recalls. “We needed something that made a beep-beep-beep sound when a body was found.”

As for avalanche cords, according to a story in Backcountry magazine (February 23, 2015), “In the First World War, Austro-Hungarian Alpine companies began using avalanche cords while crossing often-dangerous mountain passes. Soldiers would tie the 20–25-meter cords around their waists, and, if an avalanche broke, the light rope unfurled and rose to the surface. The cords were numerically marked every meter, and arrows pointed toward the buried skier.”

Top: Weighing less than a pound, the Skadi transceiver revolutionized avalanche rescue protocols upon its launch in the late 1960s. Right: Inventor John Lawton with an early prototype that featured a loop antenna sewn into a parka.

JEFF BLUMENFELD

Early Skeptics

The introduction of the Skadi transceiver, named for the Norse goddess of skiing, was hailed by the New York Times (February 16, 1969) as a new electronic device that might ultimately replace avalanche dogs. The invention was credited to Lawton and demonstrated at the Forest Service’s avalanche school in Alta. “However, the day seems distant when ordinary skiers and climbers will carry such equipment,” sniffed the Times’ Walter Sullivan. “Meanwhile the keen-nosed avalanche dogs will continue to save lives.”

As proof, Sullivan recalled a visit to the Great St. Bernard Pass, where Prior Bernard Rausis, in charge of the famous hospice between Switzerland and Italy, praised his dogs as rescuers, many of whom were trained at a special school in Verbier.

Incidentally, the whiskey barrel around those St. Bernards’ necks is a myth, apparently perpetuated by the 1820 painting “Alpine Mastiffs Reanimating a Distressed Traveler.” In the Times interview, Rausis scoffed at the idea that true St. Bernard rescue dogs carried small kegs on their collars: “How could a dog with a keg under its chin drop his nose to sniff out snowburied travelers?” Furthermore, Rausis pointed out, fumes leaking from the keg would smother the dog’s sense of smell.

Pulsing Electricity Through Copper

Prior to Lawton’s work, researchers had developed electromagnetic devices to locate avalanche victims, but these lacked the range and accuracy to find those buried quickly enough.

From his lab at Cornell, Lawton sent transceiver prototypes to LaChapelle for testing. “They worked,” LaChapelle later wrote to Lou Dawson. Simply stated, Lawton’s device radiated a magnetic field by pulsing electricity through a copper coil. Each member of a skiing party would carry a Skadi switched to its transmit setting. If a skier went missing, the rescue party would switch their Skadis to receive. The receiving part of the unit picked up the transmitting signal and converted it into a sound heard through an earphone. The sound would grow louder as a searcher moved closer to the victim.

The original Skadi loop antenna was sewn into the back of a ski parka. While it provided adequate range, it proved awkward to use, while limiting the user to the chosen parka.

Lawton’s Cornell team selected a frequency of 2.275 kHz, which is within the range of the human ear. That eliminated the need for an amplifier to convert a radio signal to an audible tone. That frequency was also free of interference and worked well when blocked by objects such as rocks and trees.

The Hot Dog

In the early 1970s, Lawton downsized the unit, replacing the copper loop with a smaller, ferrite loopstick antenna integrated into a handheld plastic box, which was nicknamed the “Hot Dog” for its size, colors and curved corners. This Skadi featured a long-lasting battery and an approximately 90-foot range. It retailed for $125 ($980 in 2023 dollars) and was originally made in Lawton’s home basement under his new company name, Lawtronics. While Skadis could be found at all major U.S. and Canadian ski areas, and CMH alone purchased 400, their sale “never amounted to a big business,” says Lawton.

In 1996, the American Society for Testing and Materials approved the highly directional 457 kHz frequency as the international standard for avalanche transceivers because of its greater range.

Skadis had a significant impact on avalanche safety that continues to the present. Today’s digital avalanche beacons, such as the popular Backcountry Access Tracker DTS, incorporate microprocessors to enable rapid directional searching, but all of them work on similar principles to the original Skadi.

“Transceivers are still the best way to find someone who is buried under the snow,” says Mike Duffy, a Colorado-based certified American Avalanche Association instructor and founder of avalanche1.com. “The ease of use has changed dramatically with digital transceivers with multiple-burial features and decreased search times. Transceiver use is no longer the hard part of rescue, it’s the digging that takes the most time.”

That requires probes and shovels, learning and practice, and trained avalanche dogs (without whiskey kegs) to increase the chances of finding victims.

Jeff Blumenfeld, a resident of Boulder, Colorado, is vice president of ISHA and author of Travel with Purpose: A Field Guide to Voluntourism (Travelwithpurposebook.com).

Top: Probe-line training at Snowbird, Utah, in the early 1970s. Before avalanche beacons were worn by skiers, rescue crews used probes to laboriously search for survivors. Right: John Lawton, at 100, with his life-saving invention.

JOHN LAWTON

Whatever Happened to Wedeln?

Seventy years ago, the rhythmic fall-line turn was the acme of skiing elegance.

BY HORST ABRAHAM

For about 15 years at the height of skiing’s boom era, the mark of excellence for a ski instructor was Wedeln These seamless heel-thrust turns, performed on a relatively flat ski, were generated mostly by lower body movements, including an up-unweight to lighten the skis for lateral thrust. The skier’s torso faced the direction of travel (downhill) while the legs and feet gently and rhythmically pivoted the skis left and right. The effect was a graceful leg-pendulum movement, complemented by a stable torso and rhythmic pole plants. Done correctly, these turns were purely parallel, entirely eliminating the stem.

Around 1955, Stefan Kruckenhauser, head of the Austrian Ski Academy (and therefore the pope of all Austrian ski schools) chose the name Wedeln (tail-wagging) to describe these turns. He enshrined it as the top goal for expert skiers in his 1957 book Ősterreichsicher Skilehrplan.

It could be said that Wedeln evolved from the Kurzschwung (short swing), a rhythmic and rapid linking of turns with hard edge-sets that provided speed control in steep terrain and nar-

row passages. Wedeln’s primary function, in contrast, was playful turning (as opposed to speed control), and it was mostly performed on gentler terrain or in deep powder. Wedeln became the mark of good skiing as it allowed a skier to demonstrate high levels of mobility, speed control and skillful play. In that last sense, it served more of an aesthetic purpose, reflecting a joyful personal expression of skiing. Wedeln differed from short swing by requiring softer edge engagement and lesser ski displacement across the fall line. Practitioners often described their ski-snow interaction as Schmieren (smearing). Variations of Wedeln also emerged, driven by terrain and snow conditions, and differing in the degree of ski displacement and commensurate edge engagement. And the technique became the bread and butter of racers negotiating flushes and gate combinations with little off-set.

As with many innovations, it is difficult to pin the invention of Wedeln to a particular person. According to St. Anton native and ski-school director Dixi Nohl, Kruckenhauser

In Ski with Us (1985), an English translation of the official Austrian manual, Franz Hoppichler advocated a stable torso and skis sweeping around the tips as a pivot point.

Around 1955, Stefan Kruckenhauser, head of the Austrian Ski Academy (and therefore the pope of all Austrian ski schools) chose the name Wedeln (tail-wagging) to describe these turns. He enshrined it as the top goal for expert skiers in his 1957 book Ősterreichsicher Skilehrplan.

filmed and analyzed local racers as they perfected the style while training in endless slalom flushes set by their coach, Toni Spiss (see “When Krucki Ruled the World” in the March 2005 issue of Skiing Heritage).

Wherever it came from, Kruckenhauser and his successor, Professor Franz Hoppichler, elevated Wedeln into a trademark of Austrian skiing.

The method of teaching laid out in the Austrian ski manual was:

Straight runs with rhythmic vertical movement. Repeat the above with rhythmic alternate pole plant. Add SMALL pivoting of the skis to the end of each up movement.

Reduce vertical movements until torso and arms remain on one plane, legs developing leg pendulum movements!

Rinse and playfully repeat! [my addition].

The ability to wedel elegantly became the price of entry into the Austrian teaching system. European skiers were suckers for novelty, and they flocked to the ski areas that

boasted the best “tail-wagging” instructors. Periodic demos by instructors at the morning meeting places served as visual evidence of the elegance and grace of skiing in this manner. Other European national ski schools skied the same turns, but they failed to benefit by neglecting to name and market the style. The French, for example, built on their concept of virage aval (“turn to the valley”), emphasizing the need to face the torso downhill when skiing the fall-line. Their toute neige, tous terrains (all snow, all terrain) approach always offered a broad selection of techniques and styles of turning. In 1959, Georges Joubert and Jean Vuarnet published Wedeln à la française, identifying the turn as a “thrust-pivot” and placing it not at the top of the learning progression but as an intermediate step en route to the “modern christie,” a more completely finished speed-control turn.

The French soon made headlines by promoting avalement (“swallowing”), especially for bump skiing. This technique required the skier to fold and turn the legs and feet to absorb the impact of bumps and/or the accumulating pressure of a

In Skiing Simplified (1966) Doug Pfeiffer accepted the formal Austrian technique of sweeping the tails.

Pfeiffer added: Hold a glove between your knees to learn the fashionable tight stance.

In Handbook of Skiing (1981), Karl Gamma suggests it might be permissible to pivot the skis around the boots.

well-edged turn finish. In contrast to the rotary movements used to make medium- and long-radius turns, the French ski school emphasized virage aval when linking short-radius turns. In response, Kruckenhauser advised that in bumps, Wedeln could begin with a down-unweight instead of a hop.

Both French and Austrian techniques won the attention of the skiing public. Skiers waiting in line for the tram could be heard debating the merits of one technique over the other.

Some instructors began talking about carving in the late 1960s. By 1972, when Warren Witherell’s How the Racers Ski came out, an emphasis on carving began to eclipse all other forms of skiing. Witherell suggested that a ski’s design should be a more powerful driver of the turn, not the skier’s comparatively weaker efforts to pivot. Aided by radically evolving ski design, carving emerged as the new signature of expert skiers. As new flex patterns and shorter lengths have complemented deeper sidecuts, carving remains the holy grail of excellence in Alpine skiing to this day.

Snowboarding may have led the way in this development. If carving can be explained technically as the edged ski’s tail following the same path as the tip, its psychological definition

is the thrill of lateral acceleration—the serotonin-producing risk-taking generated by leaning into the turn while feeling the dynamic support of edged skis beneath the body. I believe carving is here to stay. At the recent Interski in Levi, Finland, it was evident that the entire ski world carves, addicted to the accelerating turn.

For recreational skiers who are not addicted to speed, preferring instead to feel secure, veteran instructors will continue to encourage a flatter ski with a skidded parallel turn to control speed, at least on easy groomed terrain. People who don’t take lessons, and who are therefore uninfluenced by theory, will continue to ski all sorts of inconsistent techniques, including the occasional fall-line descent with rhythmic skidded turns.

The joy of skiing is experienced at all levels of skill acquisition. To that end, while carving is the current pinnacle of Alpine skiing, Wedeln and Kurzschwung, rotation and avalement are alive and well in the recreational skier’s repertoire.

Horst Abraham wrote about student-centered teaching in the March-April 2023 issue.

Kruckenhauser discovered Wedeln by watching young racers practicing in a flush. Here, Stratton’s Austrian instructors ski a flush.

HUBERT SCHRIEBL

The Innsbruck Inspiration

Butting Heads with Beattie en route to the Olympic Dream.

BY DAVID BUTTERFIELD

In Part I of this series (May-June 2023), Howard Head overcame setbacks and pursued his visionary metal ski design. By 1960, he had captured a large part of the recreational market, and metal skis were beginning to dominate downhill racing. Here, Head staff and U.S. racers recall a time of transition and historic achievement.

Though American women had been top contenders in Olympic racing, the

men had never medaled. In 1961, the National Ski Association picked University of Colorado coach Bob Beattie to renovate the national program. He was authoritative and ambitious, with a background in cross-country skiing and football coaching, but he was not stepping onto a level playing field.

According to U.S. racer Gordi Eaton, “At this time there was a strong emphasis on pro and amateur. We all knew that some European racers were

taking money, but we had bought into the Olympic rules.” Tough situation for Beattie, the new strait-laced U.S. coach.

He responded to the challenge by creating a de facto national training center within his program at CU Boulder. He arranged athletic scholarships, access to facilities and support from local families.

Racer (and later coach and administrator) Bill Marolt recalls, “We were going to do it the American way. He had

At the Mt. Bachelor training camp, left to right: Starr Walton, Gordi Eaton, Rip McManus, Billy Kidd, Margo Walters (McDonald), Barbara Ferries (Henderson), Chuck Ferries, Joan Hannah, Bob Beattie, Linda Meyers (Tikalsky), Jean Saubert, Annibale “Ni” Orsi, Jimmie Heuga, Bill Marolt, Buddy Werner.

JIM HOSMER

a vision for the program, and it was a game changer.” There were new advantages for the racers, but challenges, too.

For example, Beattie was fixated on physical fitness. As the leaves turned in Boulder, skiers ran the trails of Green Mountain, did the same type of agility drills as football players and hit the weight room.

Ni Orsi: Beats knew that strength was very important to winning.

Barbara Ferries: We did exactly what the boys did, except we were not allowed in the weight room.

[Title IX was a decade away.]

Billy Kidd: Beattie knew how to get the most out of his athletes. And one of the things was you get in better shape than anybody else.

Bill Marolt: It was the Exhaustion Method.

1962 winter was a World Championships year. The skiers took incompletes in their classes and headed to Europe, planning to finish schoolwork

in the spring. It was an adventure, especially for the women, who felt they were on their own without a coach (though their travel was managed by Fred Neuberger of Middlebury College). Nonetheless, they got good results.

Buddy Werner, winner of the 1959 Hahnenkamm downhill, was the team leader. He helped Chuck Ferries improve and win the 1962 Hahnenkamm slalom and grab second in the combined. Ferries also won the next slalom, at Cortina. His sister, Barbara, took bronze in the World Championship downhill at Chamonix, and Joan Hannah got bronze in giant slalom. Karl Schranz, of Austria, won the downhill and combined on fiberglass skis made by Kneissl.

Back at the Head factory in Timonium, Maryland, a new model was in the works. The Competition sported two layers of aluminum on top with a thin layer of neoprene rubber between them. This structure had a damping effect to reduce chatter. It was Howard Head’s ace-in-the-hole going into 1963.

HEAD SUCCESS IN EUROPE

Significant inroads were soon made to the Swiss national team with the help of Walter Haensli, a long-time Head confidant. Swiss skier Josef “Jos” Minsch, on Head skis, won the 1963 pre-Olympic downhill at Innsbruck, upsetting the powerful Austrians. As the European tour and big U.S. events wound down that spring, Werner, on Kästle wooden skis, and Jean Saubert, on Heads, were skiing well.

U.S. Nationals were held that spring at Mt. Aleyska, Alaska. Europeans Minsch, Barbi Henneberger and Willy Favre won some races, but their results did not count toward U.S. titles. Marolt won the downhill. Minsch was fastest in giant slalom but Werner, in second, got that title and also won the combined. Chuck Ferries won the slalom. Saubert took the women’s downhill and GS, Sandy Shellworth the slalom, and Starr Walton the combined. Most skied on wooden Kästle or Kneissl skis.

The 1964 U.S. Alpine Olympic ski team was then named—eight men and six women. It was an eclectic group of

MARRIOTT LIBRARY/MARV MELVILLE COLLECTION

Head Ski Co. launched its Competition model in late 1963. Photo by Fred Lindholm, skier Alan Engen.

SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, J. WILLARD MARRIOTT LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF UTAH

Howard Head was inducted into the U.S. Ski Hall of Fame in 1979.

At Innsbruck. Standing: Bob Beattie, Ni Orsi, Chuck Ferries, Gordi Eaton, Bud Werner, Rip McManus, Bill Marolt, Fred Casotti. Front row: Jimmie Heuga, Barbara Ferries, Margo Walters, Jean Saubert, Joan Hannah, Starr Walton, Billy Kidd.

talented skiers who had earned their spots with key results or were chosen by Beattie. Many excellent racers did not make the cut.

On August 25, 1963, the team met for its first training sessions at Mt. Bachelor, Oregon. The racers stayed at the rustic resort of Elk Lake. It was a fun and challenging situation, and team members had good feelings for each other but mixed feelings about coach Beattie.

Bill Marolt: We had cabins with wood stoves. In the morning, we’d have to build a fire to warm up.

Ni Orsi: We would take the lift up to near the top and then walk up farther to where we trained. No lift. We walked up, skied down and then walked up.

Billy Kidd: Buddy Werner was so gracious and generous, and would help the younger racers.

Barbara Ferries: Linda [Meyers] was the oldest and always the mother, trying to take care of everyone, especially me. Joanie [Hannah] just wanted to race. She had this work ethic—she tried really hard.

Gordi Eaton: Let me say this about Jean Saubert: great lady and a great competitor.

Kidd: Ni was a natural athlete, a

champion water-skier. He could do anything and pick stuff up right away. Starr Walton: Ni was terribly good looking. In Europe, he got in a little trouble because he wouldn’t quite make curfew or was out with girls.

Orsi: Beats was a great coach and tried his best to keep me under control. He even had me move in with him and his wife to make sure I was not destroying my Olympic hopes.

Kidd: I had to tape my ankle like a basketball player—couldn’t run a lot because my ankle would swell up or collapse. But he [Beattie] saw it as I was just not tough enough, not able to keep up, so he didn’t like me that much.

Ferries: There was a bit of tension between some of the girls and Beattie. Joan Hannah: Beattie was trying to make us all ski the Dyna-Turn. It was his view of how Buddy skied. “Drive those knees!” Problem, he didn’t have the whole picture. We ended up slower.

Walton: Women need women coaches. He was a football coach, a boy’s coach.

Eaton: I loved the guy. It was time for someone to have this exceptional passion and dedication to U.S. skiing and U.S. ski racers year-round! Marolt: It was a great situation for

team building. Everybody jumped in and went as hard as they could go, which was fun.

A crew from Head set up a wax room in Skjersaa’s ski shop at the Mt. Bachelor base. Gordon Butterfield guided strategy and kept notes for the home office. Clay Freeman was a good skier and the racers liked him. The technical savant was Freddy Pieren. According to Head rep Tom Ettinger, “He knew more about how skis work than anyone in the country. Howard always listened to him!”

Kästle set up in an abandoned boat house, while other reps prowled by car from Bend. By the end of the first day, the Head shop had received visits from most of the team and many got filing and waxing help from Pieren and Freeman. Everyone had a common goal: win medals at Innsbruck.

On Tuesday, August 27, Pieren discussed flex patterns. Chuck Ferries opined that men and women need different skis. Tuning work continued. Beattie came by, made a cursory inspection, then left. He returned later to direct the Head team not to work on the racers’ skis; skiers should do it themselves. According to Butterfield’s notes: “Beattie has not been at all friendly. And it is difficult to evaluate if this is

Billy Kidd (left) and Jimmie Heuga en route to slalom silver and bronze medals, respectively, at Innsbruck, the first Olympic Alpine medals for the U.S. men’s team.

Racers could come to the Head shop during their free time to work on their skis themselves and consult with the Head techs.

his total preoccupation with coaching or actual resentment.”

REPS WARNED OFF WAXING

On Wednesday, Butterfield noted that everyone on the team was testing at least one pair of skis except Werner and Barbara Ferries. Butterfield met with Beattie. It became a dissertation by Beattie on his coaching philosophy, including that ski prep would be a coach/racer domain. The Head crew should not approach team members on the hill, and stay away during dryland training, indoor sessions and meals. Racers could come to the Head shop during their free time to work on their skis and consult with Head techs.

On August 30, Jimmy Heuga took out a pair of Head slalom skis. Werner, Chuck Ferries and Eaton—Kästle stalwarts—did not try the new Head slaloms. Beattie became more amicable.

On Sunday, September 1, Pieren had a chance encounter with assistant coaches Marv Melville and Don Henderson. Both enthusiastically endorsed Head products. Pieren quoted Henderson as saying, “By the time the team gets to Europe, we’ll have them all on Heads.” Butterfield noted in his report, “Relations are now excellent.” But not for everyone.

Walton met with Butterfield and confided she was having problems with

Beattie. He advised that she do what he did and talk to the coach, get things out in the open. She was a free spirit, sure about what worked for her. Beattie was regimented, sure that his program was right for everyone. According to Walton, they never did settle their differences.

On September 3, Marolt, impressed by the International Professional Ski Racing Association racers using Heads the previous year, was on GS Comps. He said they were okay, but that he wasn’t skiing his best. Walton moved to a slightly longer slalom ski and reported them good. Her morale improved.

On September 4, Freeman drove Beattie to Bend for an appearance at a Rotary Club meeting. They thanked the locals for their support of the camp. Later that day Pieren and Beattie had a long conversation and needled each other a bit. The result was a more familiar relationship going forward.

On September 5, Howard Head arrived on the scene. He had breakfast with Bill Healy, president of Mt. Bachelor, and then went up to the training area. As the racers quit for the day, Head greeted each one personally.

Beattie was there and “had to be nothing but jovial,” Butterfield reported . Then, surprisingly, he invited Head to address the Olympic team at dinner. This was a clear breach of his own rules and a possible sign

of advancement for Head.

On the morning of September 6, the Head team said its good-byes and departed Elk Lake. Butterfield tapped out the last few lines of his report near Reno, where they dropped Head at the airport. It was a hot afternoon in the eastern Sierra. “It doesn’t feel the least bit like winter…but our mind’s eyes see visions of victory ceremonies at Innsbruck and of medals going to athletes using products made in the USA.”

ROSS MILNE KILLED

Just under five months later, at Innsbruck, Orsi was preparing for a training run in the downhill when there was a course delay. He was on 220-cm Head Comps with Marker bindings, having switched from Kneissl and Look. Around the start, racers were warming up amid bare ground and rocks. There was so little snow that the Austrian army had hauled the stuff in to build the course. Orsi recalls that it was “very rough, narrow with little or no snow on the edges.”

The delay was for Australian racer Ross Milne, who had encountered people stopped on the course during his run. He veered off into the snowless woods and hit a stump. He died on the way to the hospital. Eaton also had a bad fall in training, tearing a boot upper from the sole and suffering a concussion.

Christine Goitschel (left), Jean Saubert and Marielle Goitschel monopolized the slalom and GS medals at Innsbruck.

Beattie celebrates historic slalom medals with Kidd and Heuga.

The downhill race, on January 30, followed the opening ceremony by just a day, and Orsi remembers, “I regret not being able to march. Beats had the downhillers stay in their rooms to get a good night’s sleep.” Beattie had picked Orsi, Kidd, Werner and Chuck Ferries to run what Kidd called the “ribbon of ice.” All four finished in the top 20, with Orsi and Kidd leading on Head Comps, in 14th and 16th places. Minsch, on Heads, was just six hundredths off the podium in fourth. Orsi believes the Americans missed the wax but doesn’t remember who was responsible. “Our wax was wrong and cost us dearly,” he says. Austrian Egon Zimmermann won by .74 seconds on metal Fischers.

Racers who did attend the opening ceremony were thrilled. Barbara Ferries recalls, “I was like, ‘Oh my God, look what’s happening.’ We got the uniforms, we marched in the parade. It was very exciting.” Walton says, “That’s pretty cool when you walk in representing your country like that.” She also had American-made Head skis. “I am representing the United States, and if they have a ski that’s worthy, if they’ve come along with a ski that’s good, hell, I’d ski on an American ski.”

Walton led the American women in the downhill, placing 14th, with Hannah right behind her, Margo Walters placed 21st and Saubert 26th, all on Heads. Hannah was disappointed.

“Beattie missed the wax. There is nothing worse than feeling slow skis on the flat,” she says. “The wax should

have been skied out. We finished in the order we skied on our skis. Jean Saubert carried her skis to the start and was the last of us.”

The men’s giant slalom was on a steep, icy pitch, but with a rhythmical set. Kidd placed seventh on Head Comps, and Marolt, from bib 28 and also on Heads, was 12th. Heuga and Werner, both on wooden Kästles, disqualified.

MEDALS FOR SAUBERT, KIDD, HEUGA

In the women’s giant slalom, Saubert, on Heads, tied for second and secured America’s first skiing medal at Innsbruck—the French Goitschel sisters, in first and tied for second, used aluminum Rossignol Allais 60 skis. Barbara Ferries was 20th, also on Heads, and Hannah and Linda Meyers were 26th and 30th. Saubert scored again in the women’s slalom, taking the bronze on Head skis. Meyers was 12th and Hannah 19th. Ferries disqualified. The winner was Marielle Goitschel (on the new Dynamic-built RG5 fiberglass skis).

The men’s slalom was the last Alpine event of the Games. Beattie entered Werner, Chuck Ferries, Kidd and Heuga, all on Kästle skis. In a very close race, Kidd and Heuga made history for American men by taking silver and bronze. Werner was eighth, and Ferries, characteristically pushing too hard, disqualified.

All things considered, it was a fine Olympics for the U.S. team. Beattie’s new system essentially worked. The

women continued to excel, and the men finally took home some hardware. And Head cracked into the ski racing market. The U.S. box score: two medals for Head and two for Kästle.

Ni Orsi: For the most part we competed against professionals and with such a disadvantage, I think we did extremely well.

Barbara Ferries: The most important thing Bob [Beattie] did for us was that he put us together as a team. We cheered for each other. It was a fabulous time.

Gordi Eaton: Friendships were made, and they still endure. Most of us feel very fortunate to have been involved during this time. Ferries: The Head skis—that was a big deal for the American team to have those skis.

Starr Walton: I did the best I could do, and for me, at the end of the day, that’s my gold medal.

Howard Head continued to innovate in ski technology, but in 1969 he sold the company. He had raised his $6,000 opening bet into a $16 million jackpot. Ever the restless inventor, he eventually got into another sports racket and rallied a new company, called Prince.

For research help, the author thanks Richard Allen, Abby Blackburn, Christin Cooper, Chip Fisher, Mike Hundert, Leroy Kingland, Brian Linder, Marv Melville, Paul Ryan and all the quoted racers.

At the Harriman Cup in Sun Valley: Joan Hannah, Jean Saubert and Jos Minsch.

Degrees of Success

College grads making high marks on the World Cup.

BY EDIE THYS MORGAN

The 2023 Alpine World Championships in Courchevel/Merible, France, served up the usual mix of big-event excitement, with medals from favorites like World Cup overall champs Mikaela Shiffrin and Marco Odermatt, and surprises like unheralded super G winner James Cameron of Canada.

The excitement culminated on the final weekend in the slalom events. On the men’s side, AJ Ginnis (formerly of the U.S. Ski Team) nabbed silver— the first-ever winter sports medal for Greece— while Canadian Laurence St-Germain unseated Shiffrin to claim slalom gold. Both took unlikely paths to the top, detouring off their national teams and back to the World Cup through NCAA skiing.

Overall, these most recent World Championships featured 18 athletes who represented eight U.S. schools and their NCAA ski teams. The U.S. Ski

Team alone featured six former NCAA athletes, including St-Germain’s former University of Vermont (UVM) teammate Paula Moltzan, who led Team USA to gold in the team parallel event. Canada’s entire slalom squad consisted of former or current NCAA athletes. What started out as a few racers juggling college studies, NCAA racing and World Cup skiing has now led to a World Cup start list populated by alumni of American universities. College skiers are present throughout the World Cup development spectrum. They include athletes like Ginnis, StGermain and Moltzan, all of whom were dropped from their national teams after performance dips; like Ali Nullmeyer, Amelia Smart, Katie Hensien and Tanguy Nef, who all started their World Cup careers as NCAA skiers; and like Jett Seymour and Justin Alkier, who used college skiing to develop World Cup–level strength and speed. Their success underscores how long the journey is to

make it in ski racing and the viability of college racing as a vehicle to get there.

On the Nordic side, it’s always been customary for US athletes to work their way up via college skiing. And in the early days of Alpine ski racing, U.S. Olympic teams were populated with college athletes from schools like Dartmouth, UVM and Middlebury in the East, the University of Colorado and the University of Denver in the West. (For an in-depth look at the evolution of NCAA skiing, see “Foreign Relations,” Skiing History, July-August 2017). But with the advent of the World Cup and increased professionalization of national teams, the collegiate circuit became less attractive to aspiring racers. By 1980 there were no collegiate athletes on the U.S. Alpine Olympic Team.

College Comeback

College skiing came back as a development vehicle when NCAA races became FIS sanctioned. Following the lead of

Above: AJ Ginnis competed at a young age on the World Cup circuit, but now advises athletes to take advantage of the college years to mature as a racer. Right: UVM’s Elli Terwiel raced in the World Cup while also college racing.

DARTMOUTH COLLEGE

UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT

Western colleges, Dartmouth held the East’s first FIS university race in 1995, leading to what is now a fully FIS carnival circuit. As FIS-level racing legitimized NCAA events, the level of competition rose. More college athletes were motivated to compete on the NorAm circuit, where minimum FIS-point penalties are on offer, as well as World Cup start spots for the overall winner plus the top two athletes in each discipline according to the final NorAm standings.

The first American to fully exploit the revived college opportunity was David Chodounsky. A walk-on to the Dartmouth team, Chodounsky leveraged four years in a stable program into World Cup momentum. In 2009, a year after graduating, he made the U.S. Ski Team and later became the top male American slalom skier until his retirement in 2018.

Chodounsky debuted on the World Cup the same season as Norwegian Leif Kristian Haugen, then a sophomore at the University of Denver (DU). When Canadian Trevor Philp foreran the 2010 Vancouver Olympics as a junior racer, he noticed Haugen racing for Norway and also for DU. In 2012 Philp, too, started at DU and when faced with the choice between the national team and college, he chose both. Three years later, Erik Read followed Philp, establishing what would become a well-worn path for Canadians.

On the women’s side, Hedda Berntsen was a three-time All American skier for Middlebury before winning a

world championship medal for Norway in 2001. Canada’s Elli Terwiel (2014 Olympian) and Norway’s Kristina RiisJohannessen (2017 world champ medalist) pushed the pace at UVM, ushering in the parallel rise of St-Germain and Moltzan. Both earned starts for their countries in the Killington World Cup while college racing, opening their paths to the top of the ski-racing world.

Longer Careers, Tighter Budgets

The average age of male and female top competitors has steadily risen, as has the age of retirement. The U.S. Ski Team’s biggest stars of the 1980s retired before age 30. Today, the average age of the top 30 men on the World Cup is 28 in technical events and 31 in speed. On the women’s side, that average is 27 in tech and 28 in speed, with many veterans skiing deep into their 30s. U.S. stars like Lindsey Vonn and Bode Miller retired at ages 34 and 40, respectively. With more veterans hanging around at the top, it’s even tougher for young athletes to break in. The process takes time and money. The longer glide path of development has coincided with tighter budgets throughout the industry, decreased support from national teams and vastly increased expenses for aspiring racers. Gone are the days when talented teenagers enjoyed free equipment and national team funding. Post–high school gap year programs can cost as much as tuition at an elite university but without the education. College programs, on the other

hand, offer intellectual and career development, a vibrant social life, athletic scholarships for some and, for all, funding for in-season ski racing expenses. All of this, along with less funding at home, steadily lured foreign athletes across the pond to take advantage of this uniquely American asset and boost the level of competition.

Developing Trend

Americans, too, started opting for college as a development strategy. In 2014, faced with a $14,000 bill to ski for the national team or a full four-year scholarship to DU, Jett Seymour chose to follow Philp’s example and do both. Katie Hensien said yes to both as well, graduating from DU in four years. Each of them picked up an NCAA title while transitioning to the World Cup. Said Seymour in an interview with Ski Racing: “College was exactly what I needed to help me mature and realize there is stuff outside of my little bubble of ski racing.”

Collegiate skiing can be a way to regroup, to ease into World Cup racing or to extend the development runway. “It takes the pressure off, and you look at the long game rather than just the short game,” says Alkier. The 2021 Middlebury grad secured both a World Cup start and a spot on the Canadian team for 2023–24. “It was always a dream of mine to race in NCAA,” says Smart, who looked up to athletes like Terwiel and Read as a youngster. “I never had really thought of just doing the World Cup path.”

Clockwise from above: University of Denver’s Katie Hensien, University of Vermont’s Laurence St-Germain and Dartmouth’s David Chodounsky.

UNIVERSITY OF DENVER

UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT

DARTMOUTH COLLEGE

Returning to Speed

NCAA athletes have also found success on the World Cup speed circuit. 2016 Junior World Downhill Champion Erik Arvidsson was a promising junior racer on the U.S. Ski Team but felt burnt out. He decided to change course and attend Middlebury. It was a risky move for a speed skier because NCAA racing only includes slalom and GS. Arvidsson recalls, “I was worried that I was choosing my life path at the time, at the age of 20.”

Instead, being part of a tight team rekindled his love for racing. Classes pushed him academically while teammates like Alkier and Tim Gavett pushed him athletically. By the time Arvidsson graduated in 2021, he had scored an eighth place in the World Cup Finals. He ended last season with a 14th-place finish in Aspen’s World Cup super G, where MSU senior Riley Seger finished 10th. After earning her degree in 2021 Dartmouth skier Tricia Mangan reclaimed a spot on the World Cup speed tour and the U.S. Ski Team.

Private Teams Take up Slack

Also helping athletes choose college racing is the rise of private, multinational teams that compete on the World Cup.

Clockwise from top left: Middlebury’s Ali Nullmeyer in the finish area; Dartmouth’s Tricia Mangan on track; University of Denver’s Trevor Philp in the gear room.

CURRENT NCAA COLLEGE GRADS ON THE WORLD CUP

Here’s an unofficial scorecard of NCAA grads competing in the World Cup, including birth year, name, nationality, years racing in the NCAA; college, year of graduation and degree.

’91 Erik Read, Canada, NCAA 2015–17; University of Denver ’17 Business

’93 Brian McLaughlin, U.S., NCAA 2015–18; Dartmouth ’18 Engineering

’94 AJ Ginnis, U.S./Greece, NCAA 2020; Dartmouth ’22 Economics

’96 Tanguy Nef, Switzerland, NCAA 2017–20; Dartmouth ’20 Computer Science

’96 Erik Arvidsson, U.S., NCAA 2018-21; Middlebury ’21 History

’97 Riley Seger, Canada, 2019–22; Montana State University ’23 Business Finance

’97 Simon Fournier, Canada, NCAA 2019–22; University of Denver ’23 Business Finance

Among them is Global Racing, a collection of 14 athletes who compete for 10 nations. Many of them missed the small window to earn a spot in their national teams’ development programs but are now at prime age for the World Cup. The Americans in the group—George Steffey, Brian McLaughlin and Patrick Kenney— all earned World Cup starts last season.

Gavett, who now holds a physics degree from Middlebury, will be gunning for World Cup starts with Global next season. He points out that the commitment and effort it takes to pursue ski racing at the highest level through and beyond college is self-selecting. “The amount of people who are willing to do that is quite small,” says Gavett.

The Challenges

The hurdles are significant and go well beyond skiing fast and studying hard. NCAA rules prohibit schools from training together in the off-season, which for skiing means from April to November. As Arvidsson explains, “The only people who make it [on the World Cup] out of college are the people who are incredibly savvy and fortunate on being able to organize summer training and who have access to good coaches and

’97 Patrick Kenney, U.S., NCAA 2018–20; University of New Hampshire ’21 Economics

’98 Justin Alkier, U.S., NCAA 2019–22; Middlebury ’22 Economics

’94 Laurence St-Germain, Canada, 2015–19; University of Vermont ’19 Computer Science

’96 Roni Remme, Canada/Germany, NCAA 2016–20; University of Utah ’20 Psychology

’97 Tricia Mangan, U.S., NCAA 2019–20; Dartmouth ’21 Engineering

’98 Amelia Smart, Canada, NCAA 2018–21; University of Denver ’21 Double Major Environmental Science/Computer Science

’99 Katie Hensien, U.S., NCAA 2019–22; University of Denver ’22 Marketing and Entrepreneurship

’98 Ali Nullmeyer, U.S., NCAA 2020–23; Middlebury ’23 Economics

PAUSED AFTER JUNIOR YEAR

’98 Jett Seymour, U.S., 2018–20; University of Denver, International Business and Finance

’94 Paula Moltzan, U.S., 2017–19; University of Vermont, Biology

MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE

DARTMOUTH COLLEGE UNIVERSITY OF DENVER

really good equipment and do a lot outside of the programs on their own.” He heaps credit on Gavett’s parents, who deployed their expertise and European network to facilitate more than 40 days of high-level off-season training for Arvidsson, Alkier, Gavett and Nullmeyer.

While Eastern athletes benefit from icy training surfaces and proximity to European glaciers and race venues, Western athletes have access to early-season snow. One reason Smart chose DU was because of the six-week winter break. “It’s kind of a perfect time for me to be able to go to Europe, do some World Cups and not miss a ton of school,” she says.

The Sooner, the Better

The satisfaction and support that comes with being part of a collaborative team—where everyone is invested in each other’s success—tops the list of collegiate skiing’s advantages. Of his Middlebury teammates Alkier says, “I don’t think I would have had success without them.” Smart notes that on the Canadian national team, “We all know what it felt like to be part of a college team, and we all want to recreate that and engender that within our team.”

Ginnis adds that it’s important to be realistic about a dangerous sport that only pays well at the very, very top. “If you’re not a top-30 athlete yet, college racing is the best solid return on your investment you can make as a skier.”

The biggest advantage college skiing offers is simply time. Even though he rocketed through the ranks, won a junior world medal and ascended to the World Cup early, Ginnis, who raced briefly for

Dartmouth, thinks a solid dose of college skiing earlier in his career would have been a better path. “I lacked a certain maturity, especially when it came to racing,” he says. If he had a do-over? “I would have definitely gone to school when I was 18, 19 years old and raced a couple of years, at least, in college.”

He points out that the majority of skiers who start racing World Cup early on take forever to break through to consistent second runs, getting beaten down in the process. “The older and more mature you are when you start racing full time on the World Cup, the better it is,” says Ginnis. Also, the more established you are on the circuit, the more difficult it is to toggle back and forth to college skiing; in the beginning, however, the variety of pace and atmosphere can ease the transition to the big leagues.

Overwhelmingly, the advice World Cup grads offer to younger athletes who want to go to college is to go earlier rather than later. Athletes are heeding that advice. American Cooper Puckett entered Dartmouth as a freshman while on the U.S. Ski Team’s D squad. As a sophomore, he raced for Dartmouth as well.

“It was a pretty scary decision to make,” recalls Puckett, who sought advice from Ginnis. “He helped me completely visualize it and map it out.” Puckett says watching Ginnis win his silver medal “the most inspiring thing ever.” In addition to competing in his third Alpine Junior World Championships, Puckett earned a spot on Dartmouth’s 2023 NCAA Championship team and improved his ranking enough to advance to the U.S. C team.

Graduate School

St-Germain’s Instagram profile reads: “Alpine ski racer, Olympian, World Champion 2023, full-time student.” After earning her degree in computer science from UVM, she is pursuing a second undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering. Smart, meanwhile, graduated with a double major in environmental science and computer science in 2021. Then, with teammates St-Germain and Nullmeyer engaged in their studies, she got bored on the road. “I decided that I know I can do school and ski so I might as well keep going,” says Smart.

Read completed the Canadian Securities Course last summer. Ginnis puts his econ chops to work daily managing his own team—from sponsorships to training to staff. Nef used his computer science major for an internship with Amazon, and Alkier feeds his interest in finance by researching investments during his down time. This summer, Arvidsson fit in an internship at BlackRock Asset Management. For him, a college degree means that when he’s done with skiing, he’ll have more options.

The security of a college degree is priceless and is also often misrepresented. Gavett, for instance, doesn’t look at his physics degree as a Plan B in case ski racing doesn’t work out. “It’s not a backup,” he explains. “It’s a future when you’re done ski racing.”

Contributor Edie Thys Morgan wrote about Mikaela Shiffrin closing in on Ingemar Stenmark’s all-time World Cup wins record in the March-April 2023 issue.

University of Vermont’s Kristina Riis-Johannessen. Tim Gavett racing for Middlebury College. UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE

2023 Fundraising Campaign

Like every nonprofit in the United States, ISHA closes tax year 2023 with a fourth-quarter fundraising campaign. In a typical year, we receive 48 to 50 percent of our annual revenue in October, November and December. Individual donors contribute about 75 percent of their annual giving in those months. As we go to press at the end of August, we’re well on track to meet our fundraising goal this year: Generous individuals have already contributed 27 percent of our goal.

ISHA, and Skiing History magazine, have had a good year, thanks to your support. Circulation of the magazine grew more than 40 percent over the previous year, a welcome vote of confidence in our mission to popularize the culture and heritage of our sport. ISHA runs on the passion, commitment and willingness of our individual members and corporate sponsors to offer financial support. In 2022, membership dues and magazine sales offset 20 percent of our annual budget; your donations paid 48 percent of our expenses (the remainder was covered by corporate sponsorships and investment revenue). Your tax-deductible donation to ISHA enabled:

• An ambitious redesign of the website skiinghistory.org, meant to streamline both content search and membership renewal.

• The first annual museum grant program of $5,000, encouraging local museums to create new exhibits and programs.

• The 31st Annual ISHA Awards Program and Banquet at Big Sky, promoting publication of original research in skiing history, with related events including a vintage fashion show and John Fry Lecture.

• Six issues of Skiing History, where an expanded editorial budget enabled us to enlist more regular contributions from your favorite writers. Your donation also helped us meet the challenge of fast-rising costs for postage and printing.

• Ongoing oral history videos, published on the website.

During the coming year, ISHA will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first Winter Olympics held in Chamonix, France, and the founding of FIS in 1924.

Please watch for our fundraising mailer over the coming months, use the bound-in envelope (page 16) to send your 2023 donation or visit skiinghistory.org/donate. ISHA is a 501(c)(3) public charity, eligible to receive contributions from family foundations.

Entries for 2023 ISHA Awards

Authors and producers are invited to submit works of skiing

history, in print or electronic format, for consideration for an ISHA award. Eligible works must be published during calendar year 2023, and the deadline is December 1, 2023. For more information see skiinghistory.org/events or email Awards Chairman Rick Moulton, at rick@rickmoulton.com.

2024 ISHA MUSEUM GRANT APPLICATIONS ARE NOW BEING ACCEPTED

The International Skiing History Association is accepting applications for the 2024 Museum Grant of $5,000.  The funds are for capital projects intended to help a ski museum increase its awareness and community support. Any nonprofit ski museum in the world may apply. Applications are being accepted in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Norwegian and Japanese.

The application window will close noon EST December 20, 2023. Funds must be used for projects such as a new exhibit, artifact acquisition for display or a remodel of an existing exhibit. The project must contribute to the museum’s knowledge base and aid in ISHA’s mission of preserving skiing history. Selection of the 2024 grant recipient will be announced on February 1, 2024, and will be awarded at the ISHA Awards Banquet March 22, 2024, at the Black Rock Resort in Heber City, Utah.

Interested ski museums should contact Janet White, ISHA executive director for information on how to access the application. She can be reached at janet@skiinghistory.org.

Recipient of the first annual ISHA Museum Grant, the Maine Ski and Snowboard Museum will use the $5,000 award to support curation and creation of a new exhibit, which will be housed in the museum’s recently relocated and expanded facility. The museum is located in Carrabassett Valley, Maine.

MAINE SKI AND SNOWBOARD MUSEUM

Sea to Ski: An Athlete’s Adventures and the Dawn of the Modern Ski Boot,

REVIEWED BY JACKSON HOGEN

by Sven Coomer

Sven Coomer’s influence on the design of the modern Alpine ski boot is so pervasive that hardly a boot made today doesn’t bear his fingerprints. Today’s models follow two architectures: the two-piece, overlap shell and the three-piece, external tongue design. Coomer was largely responsible for both, and his influence doesn’t stop there.

As recounted in the final chapters of his memoir, Coomer never rested on these considerable laurels. Because he began his career when ski boots were handcrafted in leather, he never lost focus on how the inner boot should function. His search for a more accurately fitting one led him to create a silicone-injection system that followed the foot’s natural contours without distorting the shell or crushing the foot, as previous foam-injection methods often did.

Yet Coomer’s most important legacy may be a component now regarded as essential for performance skiing: the custom insole. He not only co-founded Superfeet, the seminal supplier in this domain, but also co-created a ski shop, Footloose Sports, in Mammoth Lakes, California, as a laboratory for working with elite skiers to perfect his designs. The methodology he developed of casting the unweighted insole is still in use today, as are variations on the cork material he selected as the moldable medium. His most recent original creation, the Zipfit liner, uses cork particles suspended in vegetable oil to conform to every contour of the skier’s foot.

Coomer abbreviates his career here. The book omits as many highlights as it celebrates. The first three-piece shell receives less than two sentences, as if it were an evolutionary dead-end instead of the inspiration for an entire class of boots very much alive today. There’s not a hint of his consulting work with Atomic, which led to the vented sidewalls of the first generation of Hawx boots, designed to transmit the skier’s flexing motion more directly to the ball of the foot. Coomer also masterminded the Munari M-1, the only boot to integrate an internal cable (à la Salomon’s SX series of rearentries) inside an overlap, four-buckle shell.

Also absent from these pages is another product of Coomer’s creation, the heated boot bag. Ivan Petkov, the Bulgarian ex-racer who invented one of the earliest deep-sidecut

carving skis, is often credited with the invention, because he was the first to bring Coomer’s concept to market. Did Petkov purloin the design or did Coomer simply let him have it? You won’t find the answer here.

What you will find is an abundance of sharply etched details about Coomer’s youth in Australia, his father’s home country, and in his mother’s native Sweden. “An Athlete’s Adventures” aptly encapsulates the book’s first nine chapters; Coomer attained world-class proficiency in every sport he tried. At 16, he competed in modern pentathlon at the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games and might have medaled had his horse not galloped straight into a tree during the crosscountry ride. He remounted and finished the course but was hospitalized. Breaking out of the hospital, Coomer made it back to his bunk in the dark of night and competed in the remaining four events. His combination of preternatural talent and bulletproof determination served him well in the multi-faceted career that lay ahead.

The ease with which Coomer befriended just about every important racer, coach and ski industry maven speaks to a world that felt smaller, more intimate and accessible to anyone with his drive and imagination. His outsized athleticism drew the attention of British officers who invited him to train with other Commonwealth athletes. In due course, Coomer realized he was being trained for a special operation planned by MI6, the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service. He joined a team that parachuted into Chinese-occupied Tibet to prepare the covert extraction of the Dalai Lama, an episode so shrouded in secrecy that its brief mention in Sea to Ski is the first time Coomer has shared any details publicly.

This is typical of the casual way Coomer, recently inducted into the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame, lights on the truly remarkable facets of his life. For example, hired by Nordica to help the brand transition from leather to plastic boots, Coomer compiled “a list of 173 functional design criteria” that would become the Sapporo boot, a leather prototype for the first all-plastic boot. That’s the sort of attention to detail and willingness to self-impose almost impossible standards that are hallmarks of the man’s mind-boggling career.

There’s a word for someone of Sven Coomer’s amazing inventiveness: genius. He’s a rara avis for whom all skiers should murmur a few words of gratitude as they don their boots.

Sea to Ski: An Athlete’s Adventures and the Dawn of the Modern Ski Boot, by Sven Coomer. Aspen, 2023. 100 pages. From Amazon, $15 paperback, $9.95 Kindle edition.

Laurentian Museum Opens New Digs

BY BOB SODEN

On June 21, the Laurentian Ski Museum (LSM), now in its 41st year, officially opened its expanded new headquarters at 6 avenue de la Gare, in St-Sauveur, Québec. The well-attended ceremony featured a ribboncutting event and the receipt of a large check from the local government.

Formerly a National Bank building, this charming Québecois-style edifice has been happily repurposed as a ski museum and is now leased from the municipality. The collection was carefully transferred from the former museum home in a renovated fire station just a few blocks away.

The museum is open daily all summer, from Sunday to Wednesday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Thursday to Saturday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Winter hours will vary (check the museum’s website, below). If you come as a group, please call ahead to reserve a guided tour. Entry is free.

History of the Museum

The museum’s story began in the 1960s when historian Bernard Brazeau began to indulge his passion for collecting ski artifacts. In 1980, he teamed up with two ski-historian colleagues, Jacques Beauchamp-Forget and Fernand Trottier, and together they created a “research group on skiing in the Laurentians.” The Laurentian Ski Museum became a reality two years later. In 1992, Alice Johannsen merged her Musée Jackrabbit with the LSM. Founded in 1987, her collection recalled and honored the life and work of her father, Herman

Smith-Johannsen (1875–1987).

Since its inception, the LSM has held an annual soirée of the Laurentian Ski Hall of Fame, which is part of the museum. The venue most often selected for this event has been the nearby Mont St. Sauveur main ski lodge (the ski area is now known as Sommet St. Sauveur). The list of inductees, some 178 over the past 39 years, includes such skiing luminaries as Émile Cochand, Sr., creator of North America’s first ski resort, Chalet Cochand (1915); Lucile Wheeler-Vaughan, the first North American to win an Olympic medal in the downhill (Cortina d’Ampezzo, 1956) and the honorary hostess of the Hall of Fame for many years; and Linda Crutchfield, five-time Olympic competitor in skiing and luge, ski instructor and Level IV CSIA examiner. More recently, in 2016, the LSM inducted ISHA’s own John Fry and Doug Pfeiffer.

The museum is justly proud of its extensive holdings, which include more than 7,500 artifacts and 20 private archive collections. Prominent among these collections are Jackrabbit’s memorabilia and the mementos of the ski-racing careers of Rhona and Rhoda Wurtele; the LSM also maintains the website of the Répertoire-des-centres-de-ski-du-Québec (Directory of Quebec

For more information, see skimuseum.com/laurentian-skimuseum.

MELON DIGITAL PHOTO

Ski Sites), by Pierre Dumas, which documents and geo-locates more than 600 ski centers, current and abandoned. The Dumas site received the ISHA Cyber Award in 2017.

Cutting the ribbon at the LSM opening are (from left) political adviser Michel Kieffer, LSM curator Nancy Belhumeur, Municipal Councillor Rosa Borregrine, Olympic medalist and honorary LSM president Lucile Wheeler-Vaughan, Health Minister Sonia Bélanger, St. Sauveur Mayor Jacques Gariépy, LSM General Director Pierre Urquhart and LSM President Guy Thibaudeau.

From left: Sonia Bélanger accepts the check from Guy Thibaudeau, Pierre Urquhart and Nancy Belhumeur.

MELON DIGITAL PHOTO

Farewell to Ski Pioneers

DOUG PFEIFFER

PSIA Founder, Freestyle Pioneer, Magazine Editor

Doug Pfeiffer, influential magazine editor and ski instructor, died in hospice in Manhattan on July 23, 2023, after a long illness. He was 96 years old.

Pfeiffer began skiing at age four on the hills around Quebec City, and at 18 taught at Chalet Cochand in the Laurentians. He went on to teach at Mont Tremblant and Gray Rocks, and in 1947 twice passed the Canadian Ski Instructors Alliance exam with top-of-class marks. In 1950 he was hired by Emile Allais to teach at Squaw Valley, where he was certified by the Far West Ski Instructors Association (FWSIA).

Beginning in 1951, Pfeiffer served several terms as president of the FWSIA while working as ski school director at Kratka Ridge, Moonridge and Snow Summit, all in California. He spent summers in college, studying psychology and methods of teaching. He earned a B.A. in vocational education and a California public school teacher’s credential and taught fifth and sixth grades in San Bernardino for several years. He published his first book, Skiing With Pfeiffer, in 1958.

In 1961, as president of FWSIA, he played a key role, with Bill Lash, Willy Schaeffler, Paul Valar and others, in founding the Professional Ski Instructors of America and served on its board of directors as treasurer for four years.

In 1963, Pfeiffer moved to Denver to become national editor of Skiing magazine while working as ski school director at Loveland Ski Basin. In 1965, the magazine was purchased by Ziff Davis Publishing and Pfeiffer moved to New York, where he served for 13 years as editor-in-chief of the Ziff Davis ski titles, supervising Skiing, Skiing Trade News, Skiing Area News, Skiing International Yearbook and Skiing Trade Show Daily. While Skiing promoted itself as the magazine “for the serious skier,” Pfeiffer’s emphasis was always on joy and fun.

That philosophy led Pfeiffer to take a leading role in sponsoring freestyle competitions and a pioneering program of ski testing. Between 1965 and 1975, his syndicated radio program was heard nationwide, and in 1972 he worked as commentator for the nationally televised Killy Challenge, as well as co-hosted, with Suzy Chaffee, a TV series called

The World of Skiing. He also published more books, including Skiing Simplified (1966) and Skiing Skills (1980).

Pfeiffer was elected to the U.S. National Ski Hall of Fame in 1987 and to the Canadian Ski Hall of Fame in 2017. Beginning in 1993, he served on the board of directors of the International Skiing History Association and received its Lifetime Achievement Award for Journalism in 1999.

CONRAD KLEFOS Resort Executive

Conrad Emil-Snow Klefos died unexpectedly from complications from lymphoma on June 3, 2023, at the University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington, Vermont. He was 69 years old.

Klefos was born and raised in New Hampshire and skied for the University of New Hampshire team. He graduated in 1975 with a bachelor’s degree in parks and recreation. After initial jobs at Hunter Mountain, New York, and Smugglers Notch, Vermont, he served as vice president of marketing and sales at Jay Peak, Vermont, from 1980 to

2000. He was then associate publisher of Quebec’s Ski Press magazine before moving to Maine in 2009 to assume marketing positions for Saddleback and Maine Huts & Trails. He served on several boards of directors, including the Jay Peak Chamber of Commerce and Vermont Ski Areas Association.

CONRAD KLEFOS

COMING UP IN FUTURE ISSUES

100th Anniversary

1924 saw the founding of FIS —and the first Winter Olympics. We’ll look back at the twin events.

Where Are They Now?

Joan Hannah

Stefanie Sloanend

Collectibles

Vintage Fashion Pins and Patches

RUBBERHEADS

The art of Otto Baumberger.

In the autumn of 1963, this ad in SKI Business magazine highlighted new technology from the factory in Timonium, Maryland. In addition to short skis (later branded for the Headway graduated-length teaching program), the new Head Competition debuted (see page 18). The Comp was a huge step up from Head’s previous race skis, with a narrower, deeper sidecut and a thin rubber damping layer to reduce chatter on ice. Head later advertised that the rubber layer made the ski feel “snaky” in bumps and would build the best-selling 360 on the technology. Meanwhile, Fischer came up with rubber damping independently for its Alu-Steel series. Both companies would do well at the Innsbruck Olympics that winter. —Seth

Masia