Ski Racing

By Tom Kelly

Over the past decade, Lindsey Vonn has established herself as one of the world's most notable athletes. People on the street know Lindsey Vonn. They recognize her as an accomplished ski racer and cultural hero of her time - a glamorous woman whose image has graced every level of global media.

What they don't see is the Lindsey Vonn who spends six to eight hours in the gym every day -  sweating and toiling to tone her 32-year-old body to accomplish things never before achieved in her sport. And with each painful injury, that work becomes harder.

It was no surprise that last weekend in the Bavarian village of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, she broke down in tears - letting her emotions loose in the finish area, hugging her father, doing a dance with the fans and looking back up at the imposing Kandahar run with a smile.

It was just a broken arm, some would say, that stole the first six weeks of the Audi FIS Ski World Cup season from her. But this wasn't just any broken arm. A downhill training crash at the U.S. Ski Team Speed Center at Copper Mountain, CO in November shattered her humerus. She showcased the x-rays on Instagram, detailing the fragmented bones and the metal plate and screws surgeons in Vail used to put it back together again.

Next came the work. There was pain. There were tears. Then there were pullups - maybe earlier than doctors would have liked. But she had a mission.

A week before Garmisch, after  just a few on-snow days at Vail, Vonn crossed the Atlantic bound for the tiny Austrian mountain village of Zauchensee south of Salzburg. It was a very special place for her. A year ago, the legendary Austrian Annemarie Moeser Proell was in the finish to greet the American star when she matched the record of 36 downhill wins.

A win would have been a fairy tale. But it wasn't in the cards. After days of waiting for weather to break for downhill training, Vonn mustered a 13th on the twisty-turn track that rips its way from the towering peak of the Gamskogel to the charming village below.

She tucked away the experience in Zauchensee and traveled to Garmisch with hope and confidence. The Kandahar is one of those big downhills with broad shoulders and bold, sweeping high-speed turns. Six of Vonn's then 76 World Cup wins had come there (among them a slalom win in 2009) - including a big victory a year ago by 1.51 seconds. Still, she had such little time on snow - and almost nothing at speed - she thought she may need to scale back her expectations.

The Kandahar stands proudly in the shadow of the Zugspitze. The women's course starts high in the Troeglhang, arcing boldly through the Bavarian forest - big sweeping turns. But while the top may be bathed in sunshine, the winding track is dark and bumpy, making it terrifyingly difficult to visualize your line. This was a course you skied with intuition and feel.

Vonn kept her cards close in two training runs, running fifth fastest on her final try but failing to  make one of the final gates. No worries. She knew she could adjust her line on race day.

Standing at the top, she knew what she had to do. German hero Veronika Rebensburg kicked it off with bib number one to take the lead. One by one, no one could match her time. Then came the matchup ski racing fans can expect to see in every speed race this season as Swiss star Lara Gut came into the gate. Gut knifed it down the Kandahar to take the lead. Soon it was Vonn's turn, in the familiar 17th start position.

She charged out onto the course, arcing her way onto the Kandahar and through the chicane turns of the Schussanger. The first intermediate time came up red, a slim gap to make up on Gut. Pointing her skis into the fall line, Vonn took on the look of a champion. This was not the same ski racer with the wide and shaky turns of a week earlier. She rocketed down through the Himmelreich and dropped over Waldeck - the steepest pitch on the course.

Suddenly the 2010 Olympic champion was up by .39 seconds over Gut.

Vonn continued to put down bold turns, skiing a courageous line - taking calculated risks, skiing on a mission. Now it was down to the final turns through the FIS Schneisse and into the Tauber Schuss - time ticking and ticking.

As she crossed the finish line, there a moment of silence. Then there was the roar of the crowd. She saw the scoreboard and it was green. She hugged her hands into her chest, looking into the crowd for her father, before collapsing prone on the snow sobbing uncontrollably.

Sport fans see what takes place in the arena. But sometimes they get a look deeper inside. In Garmisch-Partenkirchen on Saturday, they saw into the heart of one of the world's greatest athletes. Even if you're Lindsey Vonn with 77 World Cup wins, they don't come automatically and they are never easy.

It's one thing to set a goal of winning, it's quite another to achieve it. Lindsey knows she can match Ingemar Stenmark's record of 86 World Cup wins. She knows she can race against the men. But she, and only she, bears the burden of achieving it.

"To be honest, I wasn’t sure what I was capable of," she said fighting back tears in the finish. "I tried to risk more and believe in myself. I know people don’t think about how much blood, sweat and tears it took to get here today.

"Words can't describe how happy I am right now. Hard work pays off in the end.

"I did it!!"

By Tom Kelly

Gold comes in many forms. Last weekend on the icy pitch of the fabled O.K. course in Val d’Isere, France, a 15th place World Cup super G result gleamed brighter than an Olympic medal for Ryan Cochran-Siegle.

Cochran-Siegle is a Vermont native who has made Park City his home the last few years, living with his cousin and former U.S. Ski Team racer Jessica Kelley and her husband, well known Park City athlete and coach Adam Cole.

It had been nearly four years since his last major international speed event in February, 2013. On the third gate of the combined downhill at the 2013 World Championships in Schladming, Austria, he crashed, shredding his left knee. Multiple surgeries and hundreds of days in the gym later, he scored a career-best finish on a weekend that could define his pathway leading up to PyeongChang in just 14 months.

The son of 1972 Olympic slalom champion Barbara Ann Cochran, Cochran-Siegle had a textbook career going. He won his first U.S. Championship medal at age 19 in 2011. That next December he scored his first World Cup points in the Birds of Prey super G with a proud mom in the finish. Two months later he captured double gold at 2012 World Junior Championships in Italy.

He was on his way. Until that fateful day in February, 2013.

Standing in the start gate for his return to World Cup speed, his mind was calm and focused. “Starting 61 was super nice because I had no expectations,” he said. “You really have to have a pretty incredible run. There was no pressure – it was a win-win in my eyes.”

Few athletes could have survived what he had endured for nearly four years. At his side was a team of doctors, trainers, coaches and family. His gold medal attitude of patience and perseverance would serve him well.

He planted his poles at the top of the historic O.K. course that bears the initials of Val d’Isere’s most famous sons, Henri Oreiller and Jean-Claude Killy and did what he has always loved to do: he skied.

It was a long road to Val d’Isere. Much of his knee was destroyed from the accident. Initial rehab went well and he was back on snow. But it didn’t last. Another surgery. No go. One option remained – transplant surgery. While not that unusual, it was a procedure that wasn’t ideal for the levels of stress an athlete puts on the knee. But if there were ever a candidate, Ryan Cochran-Siegle was the one.

“We really blazed our own path on this one,” said the team’s medical coordinator Chris Antinori. “There was really no precedent to draw from looking at other college and professional sports for athletes having this procedure and returning to a high level of sport participation. But a lot of good things and good people came together to make this a positive outcome. RCS is the only elite skier and athlete that I am aware of to return and be successful at an elite level.”

He could have given up at any point in time. But he didn’t.

“Having had prior success, I didn’t want that to be my final race – I wasn’t ready to be done,” said Cochran-Siegle. “The amount of energy I put into my rehab – I wanted to do it right. That was the only way to make it out with what I wanted to still achieve.”

Bunkering down at the Center of Excellence and hitting the books at Westminster College, he waited for the call. Finally, it came – a donor had been found. In August, 2014 he underwent a third surgery at the Steadman-Hawkins Clinic in Vail.

Then came the work. At first, eight weeks non-weight bearing but still working every day on his good leg. Then mundane, simple exercises to patiently bring him back to strength. Six months later on February 2, 2015 – when his teammates were parading into the World Championships at Vail/Beaver Creek – Cochran-Siegle was doing his first barbell squats. A milestone day, strength coach Tracy Fober at his side.

He was on snow that summer, carefully undertaking a prolonged return to snow process together with his teammates Tommy Biesemeyer and Resi Stiegler under the watchful eye of coach Bernd Brunner. Patience was his virtue. The 2016 season was a good one mixed with some NorAm podiums, a couple FIS race wins, a pair of medals at U.S. Championships in Sun Valley and a point-scoring finish in a World Cup at Kranjska Gora.

But he wanted to get back to speed.

There’s a certain protocol in a World Cup finish area as the race day wears on. While the winners are already doing their TV interviews, eyes remained glued to the scoreboard watching to see who might make an attack from the back. RCS didn’t win the race. But, boy, did he turn a lot of heads.

Up on the race course, team trainer Antinori felt a deep swelling in his heart. Back home at the Center of Excellence, his strength coach Fober, passionately watched the TV broadcast on her computer – ignoring the meeting she was attending and shouting out loud as he crossed the finish line. As a coach or trainer, it tugs at your heart and brings tears to your eye to see a hard working athlete achieve success.

“When I crossed the finish line it was a huge relief,” he said. “I didn’t know I had that good of a run. It felt like I was on the fine line of skiing well and going out. But when I saw I was 15th
I was surprised, a little overwhelmed and super happy – immediately super happy.”

Cochran-Siegle lives in Park City with his cousin Jess Kelley and her husband, former athlete and team coach Adam Cole. In Ryan’s room, Cole hung a 2002 poster of Norwegian star Lasse Kjus that says: ‘Three-Time Olympic Champion – Inspiration.’

Ryan Cochran-Siegle is an athlete to watch. On his Instagram channel he’s posted a saying: ‘It isn’t the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.’

The gold medal goes to Ryan Cochran-Siegle.

Radical racing invention, or a variation of a long-established technique? By John Fry

Was the Egg (oeuf in French, Ei in German) a radical ski racing invention? Or merely a stage in the steady progress made in streamlining the skier’s body to achieve faster speeds?

In France the question is alive, and afire with controversy. Jean Vuarnet, his son Alain, and his supporters tell of the enormous research he did to achieve his invention. They cite the French newspaper Le Figaro, which once compared the Egg to the Fosbury Flop, a single change in body action that eventually enabled all high jumpers to leap higher. Vuarnet also suggests retaliation—that doubts about his “invention” only began after his involvement in the controversial firing of six racers from the French ski team in 1973. Critics and opponents, like Jean-Claude Killy, say the Egg wasn’t an invention, but merely a variation of what downhill Olympic gold medalists Henri Oreiller and Zeno Colò were already doing a few years earlier.

Experts in the rest of the world appear baffled by why there should be a controversy. They mostly see Vuarnet’s work as part of speed skiing’s changing aerodynamics, going back at least to 1930 and 1931, when Gustav Lantschner and Leo Gasperl set world speed records, and earlier to the 19th century, when California gold miners sat low over their long skis to speed downhill. It’s hard to find anyone outside of Gaul who thinks l’Oeuf is anything but a stage in the evolution of the hocke, crouch, tuck and streamlining of the racer’s body. Vuarnet first exhibited his stance in Ski ABC—Technique Moderne. The 1957 book contains a picture of him in what is clearly the optimal aerodynamic stance of the time—poles and lower arms parallel to the skis, which, however, are not as far apart as in later editions of Joubert’s and Vuarnet’s books. No textual analysis is offered.

The foreword to Ski ABC was written by Ralph Miller, who helped with the first English-language edition, and who set a world speed record at Portillo in 1955. Miller thinks Vuarnet’s stance was simply a further refinement of body positions designed to reduce air friction.

The 1960 edition of Ski Moderne (Arthaud) contains excellent photos, illustrations and text about l’Oeuf. It’s the first detailed description I can find in print. A photo sequence of Vuarnet from the pages of Sports Illustrated is wonderful. That magazine, and others at the time, credited Vuarnet’s Squaw Valley downhill gold medal to his use of metal skis, as well as to his superior aerodynamic stance. The Austrians were the big losers. “We missed the wax,” Anderl Molterer told me recently.

I have a copy of the German Ski Moderne, a translation by Hanspeter Lanig, published in 1963. Via e-mail, Lanig told me that l’Oeuf was an invention (erfindung) of a word, not of a technique. And Dick Dorworth, the American who set a new world speed record at Portillo in 1963, says he knew about Vuarnet’s Egg. He thinks stance is shaped considerably by the racer’s own morphology. In competitive downhill racing, the V-J or Oeuf is a technique mostly limited to shaving seconds on flatter sections of the course. How valuable it is depends on the terrain—the Streif on Hahnenkamm and Birds of Prey at Beaver Creek yield less advantage for l’Oeuf than, say, the Sarajevo Olympic downhill of 1984, or the Squaw Valley downhill of 1960.

Austria’s Stefan Kruckenhauser was said to have invented “wedeln” about the same time as Vuarnet “invented” the egg. Both drew their inspiration from racing technique. Lanig might say that the word, not the act, is the invention.

My own view is that Vuarnet’s writing and photos brought into public view the final ideal stance for attaining the highest speeds on flatter sections of downhill courses and in setting speed records—an evolution that had begun at least 30 years before. Joubert and Vuarnet’s 1966 Comment se Perfectionner à Ski (How to Ski the New French Way) shows a further evolution: the bullet or bolide. It was a super-egg-like streamlining of the body, with legs even more splayed, torso even more compressed between the legs. Here, arguably, was the final form. It hasn’t changed much in the ensuing 50 years.

Bob Beattie recently shared some thoughts about the state of ski racing in the United States. Here's what Coach has to say:

• Alpine ski racing is too expensive. When a parent calls to tell me she paid $25,000 for her kid to be on the U.S. 'C' Team, or $30,000 when moved to the “B” Team it makes me wonder. This is killing our sport!
• Local programs are our future.  The USST has jumped in after many years away. We need top coaches and leaders at the local level who have leadership capabilities and the ability to keep parents on the sideline! (I could write a book on this).
• Age levels have changed. Many USST racers are 30 years old or more. Maybe we should only support them if they excel, and only spend money on the younger ones!  Many have wanted to bring back Pro Ski Racing, but  we already have it within the USST – older racers have their own coaches, managers, travel etc.
• We have a program in Aspen, in which almost 2,000 kids become skiers at  very low cost. They receive bus transportation up the valley and instruction by the Aspen Ski School instructors. Jeff Gorsuch gave 250 pairs of skis, boots, poles, and bindings last week at no charge. A large percentage are Spanish speaking. They could not be skiing without his support. The Aspen Ski Company gave 150 snowboards. We started this several years ago and it is run through the Aspen Valley Ski Club. I would like to see this number double. We should present this to other ski towns. Then we would truly be Best in The World.
• Formats: Skiing is slow when it comes to new ideas. Let's push team events – with dual racing both at local level and USST.
• College skiing is alive but not well in the West. Only two out of 12 skiers were Americans in last winter's NCAA Championships from University of Colorado, Utah and New Mexico, and only one from the University of Denver. Education is key, with scholarships and coaching. The USST has ignored college skiing.  It should work to bring it back.

China and the future of the Winter Olympics. By John Fry

The transformation of the Olympic Winter Games within the lifetime of most Skiing History readers has been shocking. 

Bob Beattie speaks out on the “alarming” state of collegiate ski racing in the United States—and how it can be fixed.

By Edith Thys Morgan

Above photo: Courtesy David Bayer Photography

This past May, U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA) CEO Tiger Shaw announced the first National University (N-UNI) Team, to the tentative applause of the skiing world. The announcement marks a major philosophical shift for an institution that, at best, has tolerated rather than embraced elite athletes progressing through the NCAA ranks. Critics lament the small numbers and lack of female representation on the six-man N-UNI roster, all of whom will compete for their respective colleges while also competing on the U.S. Ski Team (USST). Proponents like USSA Alpine Development Director Chip Knight—himself a USST alum, three-time Olympian and, most recently, head women’s coach at Dartmouth College—see it as a hugely positive first step. 

“It’s a pilot program,” Knight says. “Our hope is to provide a viable path for kids to start school and keep developing [as skiers]. The N-UNI Team is an opportunity to show this can work.” One person who was unequivocally happy with the announcement is the U.S. Ski Team’s biggest fan and boldest critic, Bob Beattie.

Beattie’s influence on alpine skiing started in the late Fifties and Sixties, when collegiate skiing was the repository of the top U.S. coaches and athletes. The New Hampshire native grew up with a love for all sports and attended Middlebury College, where he started his coaching career. He moved to the University of Colorado (CU) to coach football and skiing in 1956, at age 23. Beattie’s Buffs won the NCAA Championships in 1959 and again in 1960, with a team of U.S. racers. Throughout Beattie’s nine years there, CU battled with the dominant University of Denver team and their coach Willy Schaeffler. While Beattie prided himself on his all-American team, Schaeffler aggressively recruited Europeans, mainly Norwegians, who brought him 13 national titles from 1954–1970. 

Beattie went on to coach the first U.S. Ski Team from 1961–1969 (concurrently coaching at CU until 1965), coaching Billy Kidd and Jimmie Heuga to Olympic silver and bronze medals respectively in 1964. He co-founded the World Cup in 1966, founded the World Pro Tour in 1970, and was commissioner of NASTAR. An ABC commentator for four Olympics, Beattie’s name and voice became synonymous with U.S. alpine skiing. Master innovator, promoter and motivator, he remains a thoughtful and outspoken advocate of skiing, offering his views on how to transform, preserve and improve ski racing in the United States. Here, Bob shares his views on the state of collegiate skiing and where, with some encouragement, it might go.

How did you get into skiing?
I grew up outside of Manchester, New Hampshire, and Dad introduced my brother and me to every sport you can imagine, including skiing. We didn’t have much money but we loved the mountains, skiing and just goofing off.

And ski racing?
I got into ski racing in high school, then at Proctor Academy where I went for a year before going to Middlebury College. I was actually better at cross country than at alpine, but I told them I couldn’t compete in cross country because I had a bad heart.

Did you in fact have a heart condition?
No. But I wanted to race alpine. I tried for the alpine team every year. Finally in my senior year I knew I wouldn’t make it, so I raced cross-country. I also played football in the fall and tennis in the spring.

Who was an early influence in ski coaching?
I learned a lot from Bobo Sheehan (then Middlebury coach, whom Beattie temporarily replaced when Sheehan left to coach the 1956 Olympic team). He had a great way of working with people. And we both hated Dartmouth. (Laughs.) I still hate Dartmouth.

Describe your CU experience.
CU ski racing was a big challenge for me and a great love affair. We fought hard with DU all the way and made “only U.S. racers” our password. At one point, the CU athletic director called a meeting with Schaeffler, the DU athletic director, and myself to tell us to “slow down.” That only lasted for a week and we were at it once again!

Your reputation was one of tough love, working harder than the other guys and building team spirit through
suffering. How did that play at CU?
Maybe it was my football background, but physical conditioning was the key to everything.  In addition to hiking to train on St. Mary’s Glacier, we worked out five days a week in the fall. Coaches from other CU sports came to watch and they couldn’t believe it.  We worked out Saturday and Sunday at 8 a.m.! Even today I exchange calls with my guys from then, people I tortured. They love to bring it up.

And nobody dodged the work?
When Spider Sabich—“only a freshman”—was late for training, I let the rest of the team take a break and made Spider do somersaults up the football field until he went into the trees and got sick!

When you first started at CU, you changed the NCAA rules (against Schaeffler’s wishes) so that three out of four racers counted (it previously had been four out of five). Then you took an innovative approach to increasing participation on the ski team.
The CU Ski Club had 3,500 members, so in an effort to broaden the CU Ski Team, I moved my office from the Athletic Department to the Student Union building. We had a film room there and I could take each racer’s video from the weekend and put them on his own reel. Every day around 10 a.m., the place was jammed and noisy, but it built enthusiasm for the team.

Do you still think that's the key—bringing skiing to the people?
Yes! I feel very strongly that CU should have a winter carnival at Eldora, like the ones they have in the East. But it could also attract a wider audience. It could have music and all types of events, both for college and recreational racers.

Beattie with an unidentified skier at the University of Colorado, where he coached for nine years, starting in 1956. Under his leadership and with "only U.S. racers" as his creed, CU won the NCAA alpine championships in 1959 and 1960. Photo courtesy of University of Colorado Athletic Department.

What makes college ski racing special?
Academics, the racers themselves, the spirit, and having both men and women competing—it will always stand the test of time. 

These rivalries throughout your career—Dartmouth vs. Middlebury; DU vs. CU; U.S. vs. European— were they bitter or friendly?
It was always friendly in the aftermath. That’s the way it is in skiing. When we get together those [rivalries and arguments] are the things we talk about. I even like that there are lots of Dartmouth people working for the U.S. Ski Team now. It is a disciplined and creative approach. I love that they are involved with college racing. Tiger Shaw’s wife Kristin left the World Champs in Vail to attend a carnival race. I love that!

How do you see the state of college skiing today?
College skiing, particularly in the West, presents an alarming situation. CU, DU, Utah and New Mexico all qualified the maximum 12 men and women allowed for the NCAA championships. They were the top four schools along with Vermont, but only two racers were from the United States! This is not right. Many Western schools (Washington, Wyoming, Nevada, and Western State) have dropped their programs. I question whether there will even be college skiing in a few years.

The European skiers raise the level of competition and lower the penalties. How does that hurt U.S. skiers?
By receiving scholarships, they are depriving U.S. youngsters the chance of receiving an education, and a future in racing. At CU I made it a point to have U.S. kids, many from Colorado mountain towns and others who later moved to Colorado after graduating. 

You have a great deal of respect for current CU coach Richard Rokos, and even supported him for the Colorado Ski Hall of Fame. Under Rokos, CU earned NCAA titles in 1998 and 1999. The majority of those athletes were born within a 100-mile radius of CU.   

The next generation of recruits, however, could not compete against what Rokos called the “Foreign Legion.” DU won four titles in row and UNM won a title with no Americans on the teams whatsoever. So Rokos brought kids from across the pond and CU won the NCAA title in 2006. With the pressure from financial backers, what could he and other college coaches do?
I disagree with the win-win-win approach. It's how you win. And winning can mean different things. It can mean more popularity for the sport. It can mean working with and strengthening local programs and U.S. athletes. 

The mix should mostly be homegrown. What will happen if more colleges are faced with financial problems and drop some sports? Where would CU, New Mexico and Utah fit, unless we show statewide support from the ski industry and local programs?

So the college thing is also an industry thing.
Colleges, local programs, the USST, retired racers, and the media should work together. Getting kids on snow and keeping it affordable is a challenge, but we can all help by working together and asking ourselves, “How can we best support our sport while expanding U.S. participation across the board?” Certainly, universities in snow states can be strong participants. Most families can’t afford the cost, especially with too much travel and parents with money working to “buy” success. We all know skiing is expensive, but we can correct this some by not traveling as much. It’s hard to increase skiing skills riding in a car or hanging out at some far away ski area. 

If the NCAA does not have the will or incentive to change the rules and limit foreigners, what can the coaches do?
Change the rules! Create new rules. In my ancient days we fought the FIS all the way about everything from race sites to seedings. One time in Wengen we fought over FIS rules about seeding and it lasted 3-1/2 hours. We won this battle (Kidd was scheduled to start the slalom wearing #45, but ended up in the first group) by not giving up, not by quiet negotiations! 

All the coaches have to do is stand up and be heard. I'm nudging them a lot. I may be taking a break but I'm not quitting on this one.

Not everyone agrees with you.
(Laughs.) Even my son Zeno disagrees with me. Like many of the college coaches, he believes the reason there are so few Americans is that they aren’t good enough. I say there is no opportunity for them. God bless the Eastern part of the country, where there are still American athletes.

What keeps you up at night?
This!

You’re an optimist. Where’s the hope?
We have a long way to go, but I am 100 percent convinced that skiing can thrive if it is promoted well at all levels.

Beyond going more local, how else could college skiing be improved?
I think having new formats and ideas should come about every year. Add new more interesting events. Maybe dual racing and snowboard events to attract the ESPN X Games audience and gain college press excitement. We should have answers when people ask, “What’s new?”

You haven’t always agreed with the USST approach to college racing.
In the past, the USST ignored college skiing. The philosophy was that you should pluck away top kids and bring them together to one place in a specialty school. I think you need to keep kids in local programs as long as possible.

Where do ski academies fit into that?
I am not a huge academy guy. (Laughs.) I understand it, but I think you can still go to a regular high school, or at least junior high.

What do you think about N-UNI?
It’s a great step in the right direction. The national team needs to work with colleges and college athletes.  What better way to develop kids and gain an education?  The colleges have good coaches and specialize in technical alpine events, plus cross-country.  

For coaches to keep their jobs, isn’t it all about winning?
There is more than winning the NCAA champs, particularly if not many people know about them. Let’s tell the story and let the secret out of the bag! Not all schools need to go for overall team victories. Some might want to specialize in cross-country.  

How do you feel about the U.S. Ski Team today?
It's exciting for me. The USST needs to work with the colleges and vice versa. I have lots of confidence in Tiger Shaw, who understands this and will make adjustments to increase the stature of college skiing.

So you’re a fan of Tiger?
Yes, even though he did go to Dartmouth. 

Edith Thys Morgan is a two-time U.S. Olympian in alpine skiing and the author of Shut Up and Ski. You can read her blog and learn more at www.racerex.com.

Years (shown below in parentheses) represent the period when the athlete competed internationally.

Christl Cranz

Christl Cranz (Germany, 1934–1939): 15 World Championship medals, 2 Olympic medals*

Nancy Greene (Canada, 1960–1968): 3 Olympic medals, winner of the first two overall women’s World Cup titles, 14 World Cup wins.*

Marielle Goitschel

Marielle Goitschel (France, 1962–1968): 9 World Championship medals (including 2 Olympic), 7 World Cup wins*

Annemarie Moser-Proell (Austria, 1968–1980): 9 World Championship medals (including 3 Olympic), 62 World Cup wins, 6 overall titles (record for men and women)

Hanni Wenzel

Hanni Wenzel (Liechtenstein, 1974–1984): 9 World Championship medals (including 4 Olympic), 33 World Cup wins, 2 overall titles 

Erika Hess (Switzerland,1980–1987): 7 World Championship  medals (including 1 Olympic), 31 World Cup wins, 2 overall titles

Erika Hess

Vreni Schneider (Switzerland, 1986–1995): 9 World Championship medals (including 5 Olympic), 56 World Cup wins, 3 overall titles

Janica Kostelic (Croatia, 1998–2007): 6 Olympic, 5 World Championship medals, 30 World Cup wins, 3 overall titles

Anja Paerson (Sweden, 1998–2012): 6 Olympic, 9 World Championship medals, 42 World Cup wins, 2 overall titles

Lindsey Vonn (USA, 2000– ): 2 Olympic medals, 6 World Championship medals, 65 World Cup wins as of March 15 (record), 4 overall titles 

* Cranz, Greene and Goitschel competed in years before the 1967 introduction of the World Cup. The first women's World Alpine Ski Championships were held in 1931.

From 1961 through 1967, the annual Bee Hive giant slalom competition attracted the world’s top professional racers to Canada. 

By Caroline Forcier Holloway

On March 7, 2014, the Georgian Peaks ski area in Ontario hosted its annual Super GP Classic, a team giant slalom race on the intermediate Minute Mile trail. Located near the town of Collingwood and overlooking Lake Huron’s Georgian Bay, this private alpine club offers 24 trails with a vertical rise of 820 feet, the highest in the province.

Though the GP Classic is an amateur event, open only to club members, it recalls a little-known but interesting chapter in racing history. On February 26, 1961, Georgian Peaks hosted the inaugural Bee Hive giant slalom. It was the first professional GS race in Canada and a smashing success, attracting elite racers like Stein Eriksen, Othmar Schneider, Ernie McCulloch and Anderl Molterer. For the next six years, top pro racers from Europe and North America convened in Canada to race on the Bee Hive circuit. 

Skiers ride the double chair at Georgian Peaks in Ontario on the day of the event. All frame enlargements courtesy Library and Archives Canada, Dan Gibson Fonds, Bee Hive Films No. 1, 4 and 7.

The event was named after Bee Hive Golden Corn Syrup, an energy food manufactured by the St. Lawrence Starch Company of Port Credit, Ontario, the event sponsor. A Montreal Gazette article published in February 1962, following the second annual Bee Hive, reported that “to those who watched this spectacular and successful event, it was evident that professional ski racing had arrived to stay.” It also established Georgian Peaks as a training ground for Olympic-caliber Canadian alpine racers, including Judy Crawford (who placed fourth in women’s slalom at the 1972 Winter Games in Sapporo), Todd Brooker (who raced on the World Cup from 1981 to 1987 and is now a TV ski-racing commentator) and Brian Stemmle (who competed in four Olympics, from 1988 through 1998).

The driving force behind the first Bee Hive was Ian Rogers, a Toronto lawyer who founded Georgian Peaks in 1960. A key partner was the late Dan Gibson, a portrait photographer, budding filmmaker and avid skier, who was keen on promoting skiing in Collingwood and at Georgian Peaks. Sponsorship was easily secured through Gibson’s skiing friend Lorne Gray, of the St. Lawrence Starch Company. Through its signature Bee Hive corn syrup, the company was already sponsoring national and local sports events, including the National Hockey League. (At the time, corn syrup was a regular staple on breakfast tables, to pour on pancakes or addto your coffee.) The company’s role in the annual GS event included covering the competitors’ expenses, putting up the prize money, and advertising and promoting the race. And every year, a comely “Miss Bee Hive” was on hand to award medals and give each competitor a free can of corn syrup, which the racers drank (as seen in the films). Gibson documented the races and distributed his films for free, to promote the event and the sport of alpine racing—and skiing—across Canada (see “To Learn More”).

The First Bee Hive: Stein Eriksen Wins the Prize

Stein Eriksen won the first Bee Hive in 1961. 

The 1961 inaugural Bee Hive attracted some of the biggest names in ski racing. Stein Eriksen, the Norwegian superstar who had won a gold medal in GS and silver in slalom at the 1952 Winter Games, took first place. Anderl Molterer of Austria, also known as the “Blitz from Kitz,” took second. Fellow Austrian racers Christian Pravda and Othmar Schneider came in third and fourth, respectively. According to Red McConville, the former president of the Canadian Ski Association who raced in the 1964 Bee Hive, Toni Sailer, the world champion racer from Austria, was present for the first Bee Hive, but didn’t compete due to his new career as an actor. In Gibson’s film, he is seen congratulating the Bee Hive winners. In total, 23 competitors raced in the inaugural Bee Hive, including Canadian champion Ernie McCulloch of Mont Tremblant, Québec. 

A newspaper headline of the day reads: “The real heroes of the race, however, didn’t wear skis.” This is a nod to the race organizers and volunteers, who ensured that the race would happen despite poor conditions that almost caused its cancellation. For a week before the race, unusually mild temperatures, mixed with rain and a lack of snow, made for almost non-existent skiing at Georgian Peaks. Officials refused to give in, spending upwards of $3,000 hauling snow by the truckload in the days before the race. On the night before the event, chemical snow cement was used to harden the snow around the slalom gates, and snow was funnelled onto the course through coal chutes. Skiers, local workers, high school students and residents of Collingwood, Thornbury and Clarksburg pitched in to help pack and shovel snow.

The racers were discouraged by the condition of the trail, but on race day, the overnight rain had turned into freezing sleet and the course was lightning fast. By noon, the sun had melted some of the ice and turned the surrounding dirt into mud, making it difficult for skiers and spectators to maneuver.

First-person recollections recount the challenges faced by the first Bee Hive race organizers. In particular, Helen Gibson of Toronto, Dan Gibson’s widow, recalls: “The day before the race there was a disastrous thaw to bare grass. Snow was trucked in, and many helpers shoveled it onto the mountain to make a single track down the course, which froze overnight so the race could be held. (What) a miracle!” She was one of more than 9,000 enthusiastic spectators who lined the course to watch the event.  

Many others recall vivid memories of the first Bee Hive: the “February Thaw” and the difficult course conditions, the excitement of the race, billeting the racers, and the fine reception at the end of the day at a private home in Collingwood, where a select few had the rare opportunity to meet and mingle with the world’s skiing greats, including Eriksen, the star of the day.

Six More Years on the Circuit

The Second Annual Professional Invitation Bee Hive Giant Slalom was held at Mont Gabriel, in Québec`s Laurentian Mountains, on February 25, 1962. With the sponsor offering a larger total cash purse of $5,000, the event attracted even more pros. By changing the location, organizers hoped to promote professional ski racing across Canada and allow greater exposure for the sponsor. The race was held on O’Connell’s Slip (Scott’s Slip), a 4,000-foot-long trail that was reconstructed to make it steeper and tougher, and the resort used the event to promote its state-of-the-art grooming and snowmaking ability. Heli Schaller of Austria was the 1962 champion. 

Christian Pravda 

The Third Bee Hive challenge was held at Devil’s Glen, near Collingwood, on February 10, 1963. Twenty-five pros raced on a course set by Red McConville, the Devil’s Glen co-founder. The champion that year was Ernst Hinterseer of Austria, who had won slalom gold and GS bronze at the 1960 Olympics. Hinterseer returned to Devil’s Glen in 1964 to win the fourth Bee Hive.  This race included three of the world’s leading skiers: Egon Zimmermann, François Bonlieu and Pepi Stiegler, who won GS bronze and slalom gold that year at the Innsbruck Olympics. Other veteran professionals competing at Devil’s Glen included Anderl Molterer, Adrien Duvillard, Pepi Gramshammer, Christian Pravda and Heli Schaller.

The following year, the Bee Hive headed west for the fifth annual race held on March 13, 1965 at Mount Whitehorn in Lake Louise, Alberta. Twenty skiers competed for the trophy including five talented Canadians (Jean Carpentier, Bob Gilmour, Jim McConkey, Al Menzies and Lorne O’Connor). 

The first Bee Hive GS attracted some of the world’s top ski racers, including Othmar Schneider and Christian Pravada (pictured above).

They competed against other world-class racers, including Mike Wiegele, Toni Spiess, Christian Pravda, Pepi Gramshammer, Marvin Moriarty and that year’s Bee Hive champion, Adrien Duvillard from France. The Sixth Bee Hive was set in Eastern Canada, at Lac Beauport, Québec, on February 13, 1966, with 

Ernst Hinterseer capturing first place for the third time. He completed the two-run race with a total time of 2:34.366, and Gramshammer placed second with a time of 2:34.735. The race comprised 42 gates and covered 2,200 feet over a vertical drop of 700 feet.  Altogether, the race included 23 racers with 10 racers from Austria, 10 from Canada, two racers from France and one from the United States (Moriarty). 

According toCanadian Sport Monthly, much attention was placed on the timing mechanism used to clock the Sixth Bee Hive race: a new Heuer timer from Switzerland. “The device is so revolutionary that on the day before the race our officials were still trying to figure it out,” said sponsor Lorne Gray. It offered reliability and accuracy down to one-thousandth of a second.

The seventh and final Bee Hive was moved to Mont Tremblant, Québec, and held on March 12, 1967. Hias Leitner from Austria, silver medalist in the 1960 Winter Olympics, took first place. The film by Dan Gibson offers a record of the racers in action—some in slow motion to showcase their technique and ability—including Herman Goellner, Toni Spiess, Egon Zimmermann, Anderl Molterer and others. 

No one can say for certain why the Bee Hive series ended after a successful seven-year run. Some believe that competitors were asking for more than the sponsor could provide in an overall purse of $5,000, with $2,000 going to the race champion each year. Others say the Bee Hive had a good run and simply died a natural death. Regardless of the speculations, most agree that after Lorne Gray’s untimely death in 1969, the momentum was impossible to regain.

Caroline Forcier Holloway is an archivist, a former CSIA instructor and an avid skier. She lives in Ottawa, Ontario.

Read more about the Bee Hive

Few sports have changed as rapidly and dramatically as did cross-country skiing in the 1980s. For more than a hundred years cross-country competitors had universally raced with the ancient diagonal stride, alternately kicking and gliding. In retrospect, it was remarkable that no one saw how much faster a skier could move if he propelled himself by skating with his skis, in the manner of an ice skater. America’s Bill Koch first observed the skate step at a Swedish marathon, then applied it to win the 1982 World Cup of Cross Country skiing. Immediately the sport was engulfed in controversy over the new technique. Within five years, World Championship and Olympic cross-country skiing was utterly transformed. Now there were as many medals for Freestyle, in which skating is permitted, as would be awarded for Classic, in which skating was prohibited. And in three more years, the freestyle revolution was so powerful that it led to the Pursuit competition, with a totally new way of starting racers and climaxing in a telegenic finish.  No one was better situated to observe the revolution than Bengt Erik Bengtsson, Chief of the Nordic Office of the Swiss-based International Ski Federation (FIS) from 1984 to 2004.

The use of a skating technique to ski across snow is hardly new. In the 1930s, when bindings were adaptable to both downhill and cross-country, skiers commonly skated across flat areas, in the style of an ice skater. For a long time cross-country ski racers skated in order to take advantage of terrain or to combat poor wax, although it was difficult to do over grooved tracks and in a narrow corridor.

In the 1960s, participants in the relatively new sport of ski orienteering – I was one of them – commonly skated.  In orienteering we use a map and compass to travel between designated points as fast as possible. The shortest route isn’t necessarily the fastest -- for example, if it’s a bushwhack. If a road is available, the competitor can  switch from traditional kick and glide skiing to propelling himself like an ice skater, going from ski to ski. Some participants even mounted thin steel edges on their skis to get a better bite on the hard snow and go faster.

The Finnish skier Pauli Siitonen was a top competitor in ski orienteering, and when he turned to marathon or Loppet racing in the 1970s he brought the technique of skating to it. But with a difference. Now, in soft snow, Siitonen would leave one ski in the track, and propel himself with the other ski, pushing off repeatedly as primitive hunters had done centuries earlier using the short Andor ski.

Other marathon skiers soon followed Siitonen. They caught the attention of America’s Bill Koch when he was participating in a 1980 Swedish marathon on flat terrain following a river. The race pitted classic World Cup skiers competed against marathon or Loppet skiers. The distance-racers by now were commonly skating. A light bulb went off in Koch’s head. Why not apply skating to standard 15, 30 and 50 kilometer FIS-sanctioned races?

At the 1982 World Ski Championships in Oslo, I was responsible for the split timing. Early in the 30-kilometer race we had a leader, Thomas Eriksson. In one special part of the track he lost so much time to Koch that we thought there was a timing error. We did not know why, but obviously it was due to Koch skating. Eriksson was the gold medalist. Koch not only won the bronze, he went on to skate his way to victory in the season-long World Cup of cross-country skiing. 

By now, the skating technique -- sometimes leaving a ski in the track, more often double-skating (called the V2 skate)-- was spreading through the sport. Officials, especially the Norwegians, were concerned that traditional cross-country racing was going to be corrupted. They wanted to ban skating entirely wherever prepared tracks existed. The ban did not happen, but at the 1983 FIS Congress the

following rules were imposed:

·      No skating in the first 100 meters after the start.

·      No skating within 200 meters of the finish.

·      No skating in the relay race 200 meters before and after the racer exchange.

Not coincidentally, the starting and finishing areas are where TV cameras and photographers are primarily located, so that the ban on skating ensured that the corrupting new technique would be less visibly public.

The issue of skating engendered bitter division within the world of Nordic skiing. On the one hand, Sweden’s Bengt Herman Nilsson, the chairman of the prestigious FIS Cross-Country Committee, welcomed the new technique. “The skating step has come to stay,” he wrote in a 1983 report. “It is even beautiful when three to four skiers in a row race with forceful skating steps - they remind me of exotic butterflies fluttering in the wind.”

On the other hand, Norwegian traditionalists were opposed to the heretical new technique. Ivar Formo, the 1976 Olympic gold medalist, who succeeded Nilsson as chairman of the FIS Cross-Country Committee, wanted to ban skating as soon as possible, and he had the emphatic support of his fellow Norwegians. A victim of their rule-making, ironically, was a Norwegian, Ove Aunli. At the 1984 Sarajevo Olympic Winter Games, Aunli recorded a time in the 30-kilometer race that made him the bronze medalist, but he was disqualified for skating in a prohibited area.

While skating wasn’t allowed in the start and finish areas, it was a free-for-all over the rest of the course, with racers calculating the benefits of waxing to promote kicking, or waxing the entire ski with glide wax for skating. By now, they had mostly abandoned the old Siitonen one-ski-in-the track technique. The gliding ski was now outside of the track, riding on the snow at a slight angle, while the racer used the other ski for propulsion in a furious repetitive move. It came to be known as V-1. No more kick wax. In a late-season meet at Kiruna, Sweden, near the Arctic Circle, the 30-kilometer winner Ove Aunli, and the winner of the women’s 10 km, Anette Boe – both Norwegians – enjoyed decisive victories on skis prepared only with glide wax. . . no kick wax.

Skating raised all kinds of issues. Would it lead to injuries, such as hip displacement. A Swiss wag called skating “the Sulzer step,” after the name of a manufacturer of artificial hip joints.

Did there need to be specialized skis, boots, bindings and poles? Should not limits be placed on shortening ski length and making poles too long? How should tracks be prepared? Since skating speed slows dramatically when temperatures fall below minus 13 degrees Fahrenheit, would not farther north nations be at a disadvantage? What kind of special training was needed, not only in winter, but in summer? What if the radical new technique spread to recreational cross-country skiing?

A whole new situation had emerged, none of it finding favor with the FIS CCC (Cross-Country Committee). The majority on the committee was driven by the fear that skating would kill classic cross-country skiing.  They were resolute in wanting to restrict skating as much as possible. One way was to create narrower courses through the forest, necessarily restricting the size of machines to prepare the tracks. “Back to nature,” was the battle cry. Another idea to discourage skating was to make sure the uphills were so demanding and steep that the skier could not skate, but must herring-bone. But the preventive method most tested was the erection of nets and snow walls to narrow the track so much that skating was impossible.

On December 7, 1984, the FIS Council, the supreme governing body of the international ski federation, directed the Cross-Country Committee to test the use of small nets between the tracks, and to set courses in such a way “that the skating step will physically not be applicable on all parts of the course.”

Dutifully I purchased netting in order to test the application of the proposed new FIS rule. I still remember when I presented the invoice of five thousand dollars to my boss, FIS Secretary General Gian Franco Kasper. Skeptical, shaking his head, he asked me, “Do you really believe in this?”  He sighed and signed the check. A month later I knew that he was right, and I was wrong.

We made our first test in Davos, erecting 12 nets. One was thrown in a river by two athletes whose names were revealed to me just a couple of years ago.

Today, we can laugh about it. The winner of the race, Ove Aunli, made a mockery of the test in another way. In a very steep section, we had not thought it necessary to put netting because no one imagined anyone could skate up such a hill. But the super-strong Aunli did it with the new technique, without grip wax, double-poling and skating.

Ambiguity was in the air when the 1984-85 season opened. In a December World Cup race at Davos, the wife of Ove Aunli, Berit, said to me, “Mr. Bengtsson, you must take away this skating.” She won the ladies’ competition on skis with grip wax. Two hours later, at a press conference, she was asked, “How do you like the skating step?” I thought she would say the same as she did to me, but to my great disappointment she answered, “It is okay for me”.

The next evening I called a meeting of athletes and coaches. Present were 

the two 1984 Olympic gold medalists at Sarajevo -- Thomas Wassberg of Sweden and Nikolai Zimjatov of the Soviet Union. Dan Simoneau of the U.S. took the place of  Bill Koch. America’s Mike Gallagher was among four coaches at the meeting.

Simoneau said that the American athletes wanted skating.  After all, the Olympics are about “faster, higher and longer. ” Soviet coach Venedikt Kamenskij countered by saying that the Olympics are also about offering “an equal chance for all athletes.” As skating destroys the tracks for the later starters, they will not have that chance.

During the meeting, Thomas Wassberg passed me a note which, in retrospect, was prophetic. Cross-country, Wassberg wrote, should become two disciplines: a classical one in which the skating step is not allowed, and another one with no restriction and even allowing specialized equipment. It was an intriguing idea, but ahead of its time.

At the end of the meeting, the entire group, except the U.S.A., wanted a questionnaire sent to the national associations proposing a ban on skating at the upcoming 1985 World Nordic Championships at Seefeld, Austria. There wasn’t much time to act. FIS President Marc Hodler decreed that a skating ban at the forthcoming World Championships was only possible if all officials and all national ski associations accepted it.

The day of the captains’ meeting came. The question was introduced: “Do you agree to any restrictions concerning the skating step during the upcoming championships?”  The voting was carried out in alphabetical order.

Australia? Answer, NO. The question was dead.

Cross-country was back to where it was at the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics the year before, except for one significant new equipment rule that had never existed before in cross-country skiing. To eliminate the possibility that skating could be unfairly speeded up by the abbreviating the length of skis, it was ruled that skis could be no shorter than the competitor’s height less 10 centimeters. Also, poles could be no longer than the skier’s height. In reality, nothing was going to stop the revolution in nordic ski technique. Classic-only cross-country by now had become almost indefensible.  Racers adopted the superior two-ski skating technique. They were abandoning the use of kicker wax, and switching to preparing their skis entirely with glide wax. In the men’s 30-kilometer in the ’85 World Championships, the best athlete on skis prepared with grip wax was the Russian Vladimir Smirnov, who placed 24th.

“A revolution has swept away the ancient regime,” wrote Arnold Kaech,  former FIS General Secretary, in Sport Zuerich. “A requiem for the cross-country sport should be sung.”

An advantage of the 1985 championships at Seefeld was that everyone --  spectators, media and above all, the FIS’s own officials -- could now discuss the skating controversy based on actual observation, on something they’d seen for themselves. The FIS Council met in Seefeld, and a group of experts was formed to define the future of cross-country. The immediate outcome was to test more ideas during the rest of the 1985 winter. As before, silliness as well as sanity ruled. Skate-ban zones were tested at a race in the Ural Mountains.  In a competition at Falun, Sweden, in order to prevent skating, officials put soldiers with shovels and rakes to work creating virtual tunnels along the track. Angered, U.S. coach Marty Hall threatened to withdraw his team from the race unless the tunnels were removed. They were. The press unjustly blamed the FIS for conducting an idiotic test.

At Lahti, Finland, in another World Cup race, skate-less zones were created. When an Italian racer skated through one, the Finnish coach grabbed him and threw him off the track. In the ladies’ relay race, restricted to classical technique, two teams skated from the start, hooted at by spectators. At the jury meeting afterwards, one coach reported no violations, even though he observed them.

At the winter’s last competition at the Holmenkollen in Oslo, the course was divided into classic and skating-permitted zones. At the top of a long uphill, Thomas Wassberg stopped and removed from the bottom of his skis duct tape on which he had put grip wax. Now, equipped only with glide wax, he had an advantage over the other competitors.

By the end of the winter of ’85, we concluded that none of the methods that we’d tested for limiting the skate step skating was effective. Nor could it be done by limiting the size of machines approved for track-setting.

Meanwhile, the pressure for change was mounting. Ski manufacturers were readying specialized models of skating skis to be introduced on the market. The skis would be shorter than classical cross-country skis. A decisive moment was approaching with the FIS Congress, the summit meeting of the sport of skiing, taking place in Vancouver, British Columbia.

When the FIS held its Congress in Vancouver in the summer of 1985, a record number of people showed up at the Cross-Country Committee meeting. The forces opposed to skating included Norway, the Soviet Union and Finland. Nations favoring the new technique included the U.S., Canada and Italy. Germany’s Helmut Weinbuch, influential chairman of the Nordic Combined Committee, was in favor of skating in short distance races and the relay. Out of the meeting emerged a proposal to be presented to the Congress. The most radical proposal was that half of the World Cup races over the season be in classical technique and half in freestyle, and the same for Junior World Championships. The format for other international competitions would be at the discretion of the national associations in the host countries.

I had never before taken a stand in the discussion but now I asked for the floor and declared my opinion. We don’t have enough experience. Before proceeding, the most important thing to do, I said, is to formulate rules for the two techniques, and see how they work in practice.

A Working Group was formed under the chairmanship of 1968 Olympic champion Odd Martinsen of Norway. By April 1986 it delivered a framework for the future acceptable not only to the FIS Council, but also to the entire cross-country world. Biathlon and Nordic Combined moved swiftly. The two sports chose freestyle for their competitions.

A major problem remained, however. How to police the classical competitions so that the racers didn’t cheat by skating? One faction thought the classics would be self-policing. The athletes themselves would act as police, reporting incidents of racers breaking out of the kick and stride to skate. Swiss journalist Toni Noetzli, on the other hand, wrote in the influential Sport Zurich that self-policing would never work. The winner will not necessarily be the best athlete, but the one who escaped observation and did not get caught skating. As a result of track police, there will be protests, disqualifications and endless appeals. “It will be the death of cross-country skiing,” wrote Noetzli. Even to this day, America’s Bill Koch agrees. “For the first time, cross-country skiing became a judged event, the woods filled with police looking for skating violations. The very nature of cross-country skiing changed.”

Koch’s and Noetzli’s worst fears of an entanglement of jury decisions, however, were not realized. The 1985-86 competitive World Cup season produced no major protests. Satisfied with the progress, the FIS Council in May, 1986, took formal action. After 63 years of World Championship and Olympic cross-country skiing, the FIS voted for  revolution. It officially divided the sport into classic and freestyle disciplines.

For the 1987 FIS World Nordic Championships at Oberstdorf, Germany, and for the 1988 Olympic Winter Games at Calgary, Canada, the men’s 15 and 30 kilometer races would be classic, no-skating races; the 50 kilometer and the relay (four men each racing 10-kilometers) would be freestyle, with unlimited skating allowed. The women’s 5 and 10 kilometer races would be classic; the 20 kilometer and the relay (four women each racing 5 kilometers)

For those who wondered how different nations would perform in the freshly transformed sport, surprise was in store. At the 1987 World Championships, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) did not participate at all in the classic races. The East Germans believed that classic cross-country was finished as a discipline. With their focus entirely on freestyle, wearing tight-fitting, streamlined suits, both men and women were expected to dominate the 50-kilometer and relay races. But the East Germans failed miserably, and the top coach was fired.

Italy too had been unenthusiastic about the continuance of races in which skating was prohibited. Yet to everyone’s astonishment the Italian cross-country racer Marco Alberello won the gold medal in the 15-kilometer classic at Oberstdorf. As a result, Italy came around to favor both classic as well as freestyle. And so did the rest of the world.

The sport of cross-country was uprooted, shaken, renewed. The Nordic Combined and Biathlon adopted skating. Recreational skiers took it up. Nordic fashion switched from classic knickers to sleek, tight-fitting pants and jackets that suited the faster speeds and dynamic athleticism of skating.

Nor was the rapid change followed by a pause. The spontaneous success, together with the FIS’s desire to discourage specialization in classic or freestyle, inspired the idea of combining the two in one competition, which led to the 1990 introduction of the Pursuit. The finish order of one establishes the start order for a second race. The leader from the first race or from a jumping competition becomes the hare chased. The Pursuit result is a tumultuous finish, appealing to spectators and television.

Nordic skiing has been changed forever. The decision-making, in the end, was wise. I am happy to have been involved in re-invention of what is now the world’s most dynamic sport.

Author Bengt Erik Bengtsson, retired, lives today in his native Sweden. His job at the FIS is now divided into cross-country, jumping and Nordic combined. Special thanks to Bill Koch and ISHA editorial board member John Fry for their contribution to the editing.  

Carol Burney of Quincy, California, and Eric McGrath of Reno, Nevada are the new world champions of longboard racing, as the Plumas Ski Club celebrated the 150th anniversary of the first ski racing and ski club in America, March 19 and 20, 2011, in Johnsville, California.

In stormy but fine style, it could have been a race scene from the 1800's as men and women longboard contestants gazed down the track trying to see the prior lines inscribed by earlier racers. The track was hard to see and many memorable tumbles took place! (Thankfully, no known injuries!) 18 inches of new snow fell Saturday night adding to the 3 feet that the club had shoveled and groomed the
prior day. Despite snowy, low visibility conditions, new "World Champion Snowshoer's" were crowned and presented with champion belts as
occurred 150 years ago in Onion Valley, credited as the site of the first organized American ski races and first ski club in 1861. The
Sunday's race event, preceded by Saturdays special longboard reception, commemorated the 20th anniversary of "Plumas Ski Club sponsored
longboard revival races" and the "right honorable" 60th anniversary of the Plumas Ski Club! A good time was had by all!

The Saturday March 19th anniversary reception was held at the Plumas Eureka State Park Johnsville Museum and the "World Championship" races were held on Sunday the 20th in the historic Eureka Bowl, home of the Plumas Ski Club "Historic Longboard Revival Series". Gold seeking
miners flooded into the Lost Sierra in the early 1850's passing from the east below Eureka Peak en route to diggin's throughout the Lost Sierra
region. The gathering of longboarders and ski club supporters at Saturday's special reception featured a new commemorative slide
presentation which chronicles the unique ski history of the region and the role of the Plumas Ski Club in keeping this history "alive". The
weekend's impressive storms prevented many people from making the Saturday and Sunday trip to Johnsville but a good crowd of quite hardy
spectators and nearly 40 men and women participated in Sunday's races in what seemed "very authentic" winter race conditions.

Long time racers Carol Burney of Quincy and Eric McGrath of Reno, Nevada took home the coveted champions titles. Ski club organizers hoped the "spirits" of past Lost Sierra longboarders were "right honorably proud" as races commenced and flasks were lifted to toast what race organizers believe is a "right honorable, momentous, multi-anniversary, ski history occasion!"

The first Plumas Ski Club sponsored longboard revival race was held in 1952 at "Snowshoe Flats" followed by 19 years of revival races at the Eureka Bowl Track beginning in 1993. The Plumas Ski Club has been promoting community skiing and longboard history for 60 years including long time operation of the "Plumas Eureka Ski Bowl" ski area. The ski bowl facility is currently not in operation though efforts are ongoing to fund installation of a small chair lift to replace outdated poma surface lifts. It is believed by many ski historians that mining ore buckets operating on Eureka Peak in the mid 1870's may well have been the world's first ski lift... a distinction worthy of ski club and community efforts to bring the ski bowl operation back to life! In the mean time, the ski club is proud to continue it's sponsorship of longboard revival race "doin's" as the only remaining ski club in the entire Lost Sierra! Long live longboards!

Plumas Ski Club President Ron Logan and long time longboard promoter Rob Russell acknowledged the contributions made by many people to allow the longboard revival races to happen. "As has been the case since the 1950's, big thanks must go to the Plumas County Road Department for their 'above and beyond' efforts to keep the road passable to the ski bowl". Thanks also went to Ranger Scott Elliott of Plumas Eureka State Park for allowing the museum to be used for the reception. Russell noted that the Johnsville museum had served as a ski lodge for the club dating back to the 1940's and 1950' when a rope tow operated nearby. Braving stormy conditions, the crew from the Plumas Eureka State Park Association helped reduce parking lot chaos. Club member Pete Bartels noted the special contributions of lumber made by Sierra Pacific Industries. Over the years, "SPI" has donated wood used to make many new pairs of longboards in the Feather River College "longboard construction class". Logan also noted the special contributions made by Plumas Sierra Rural Electric Cooperative allowing use of their snow-cat and thanks to machine operator Paul Erwin for race track grooming in a blizzard!. Loren Hartwig and John Fischer provided invaluable help shuttling longboards and supplies to and from the Intorf Lodge. Additionally, Russell made special mention of club member Jim Webster for his ongoing "behind the scenes" hard work. "Jim has put in an amazing amount of time and effort for many, many years and has played a key role in keeping the longboard festivities and other club efforts going! When I and many others have a ski club question or need an opinion, Jim is the guy we seem to go to first. " said Russell. Scott Lawson, curator of the Plumas County Museum, got big thanks for his ongoing help documenting the historical record of the races not to mention serving as right honorable "Dope master" for the club. 

Following the historical themes made in an earlier presentation to the "International Ski Congress" in 2009 at Mammoth, Lawson and Russell have prepared a new "power-point" show with expanded Lost Sierra and ski club story-lines. The show describes more about Lost Sierra ski and race history and the role of the ski club and community organizations in promoting "snow-sport activities". This presentation will supposedly be part of an upcoming "Far West Ski Association" (FWSA) movie that the club was asked to contribute to.

Thanks also went to the now famous "Lost Sierra Orchestra" who have made great mountain music at these events for years. "Without music at the longboard events, it just wouldn't be the same" said event planner Lisa Kelly. Long time supporter John McMorrow and Jeff Glover also got kudos for start line duties and recognition was given to the "Clamper's" for their continuing assistance with "right honorable" judging and gong duties. "The Clampers have been part of the longboard scene dating back to the 1800's" said Lawson. Rounding out some of the acknowledgments, Phil Gallagher was recognized for his longboard art contributions dating back to 1990 and Jim and Pam Babbitt and John Sheehan were thanked for their long time help with race announcing, registration, and general "yabber jabber". "There are so many people to thank" said Russell. "We truly appreciate everyones team-work assistance and we look forward to keeping the longboard races going for years to come!"

Keep an eye on plumasskiclub.org for further information and race photos.