Aleš Guček - Architect, historian, author

Aleš Guček passed away in Ljubljana, Slovenia on January 19, 2026. He was 82. 

Guček began skiing at age three, and raced for the Yugoslav junior Alpine ski team from 1958 to 1963. He earned his ski instructor certification in Slovenia in 1965, followed by France in 1969 and Germany in 1970. From 1966 to 1979 he skied on the Slovenian ski instructors’ demo team, and from 1972 to 1974 was president of Slovenia’s Association of Ski Instructors, Teachers, and Coaches. He modernized the then-dominant Austrian ski school in Slovenia by incorporating elements of the French rotation technique. At the 1979 Interski Congress in Zao, Japan, three Slovenian demonstrators presented the traditional folk skiing technique from Bloke. The event marked Guček’s debut as an historian of skiing. He went on to document the history of ski flying at Planica, partisan ski racing during World War II, and the beginnings of adaptive skiing –specifically for the blind—in Slovenia.

Guček authored six books on skiing history, in Slovenian and English, and contributed articles to this magazine.He helped establish the Ski Museum Collection in Gozd Martuljek, Slovenia (now housed in Tržič), the Elan ski factory museum and the museum exhibition at the Planica Nordic Center.—Borut Batagelj