Jean Vuarnet
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Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Born | Le Bardo, Tunisia | 18 January 1933|||||||||||||||||||||||
Died | 1 January 2017 Sallanches, Haute-Savoie, France | (aged 83)|||||||||||||||||||||||
Occupation | Alpine skier ♂ | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Spouses | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Children | 3 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Olympics | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Teams | 1 – (1960) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Medals | 1 (1 gold) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
World Championships | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Teams | 2 – (1958, 1960) (includes Olympics) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Medals | 2 (1 gold) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Jean Vuarnet (18 January 1933 – 1 January 2017) was an alpine ski racer from France. An Olympic gold medalist, he is known for inventing the "Tuck" skiing position.
Early life
Jean Raoul Célina André Vuarnet was born in Le Bardo, Tunisia, on 18 January 1933. The next year, his family moved to Morzine, France, where he grew up.[1] He attended law school at the University of Grenoble (due in part to Grenoble's location being fit for skiing).[1]
Career
The high point of Vuarnet's racing career came at age 27 at the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, where he won the gold medal in the downhill.[2] Previously, he had won bronze in the same event at the World Championships in 1958 at Bad Gastein.[3] From 1957 to 1959, Vuarnet achieved seven titles as a French skiing champion: twice in the downhill (1958, 1959), slalom (1957, 1958) and alpine combined, and in the giant slalom (1957). He had placed third in the slalom and the alpine combined in the "Kandahar" at Sestriere in 1956. He was not selected for the Olympic team in 1956.
He was a skiing innovator.[1] He honed his revolutionary aerodynamic "egg position" (French: "dite de l'œuf") now known as The Tuck[4] - a lower stance in which he squatted down with knees bent, arms outstretched and fists clasped together, in a bid to increase his speed. He also was the first to race on metal skis (skis métalliques Rossignol),[5] on which he won the downhill at the 1960 Winter Olympics. The tenth racer on the course, he won by a full half-second.[6]
After retiring from active competition, Vuarnet became head of the Italian alpine ski team from 1968 to 1972, and vice-president of the French skiing association, a role in which he served from 1972 to 1974.[7]
Business
In the early 1960s, Vuarnet was asked by his hometown of Morzine to help develop the skiing area around the town. He did so by creating the purpose-build resort of Avoriaz, together with a group of young architects. Around Avoriaz he developed a new area for alpine skiing, later linked to other areas in France and Switzerland known as The Portes du Soleil.[4]
Vuarnet also gave his name to the exclusive Vuarnet sunglasses in 1961, now owned by a U.K. private equity group, Neo Investment Partners.[1][8]
Personal life
In 1958, he married Edith Bonlieu, a three-time French women's ski champion and sister of François Bonlieu. Edith and their youngest son Patrick were among the members of the Order of the Solar Temple cult who committed mass suicide in 1995.[9] With Edith he had two other sons, Alain and Pierre Vuarnet.[1][7] He married his second wife Christiane in 1999; she died of a heart attack in 2012.[7]
After a stroke, Vuarnet died at age 83 in 2017 at Sallanches, Haute-Savoie.[10]
On the 50th anniversary of his gold medal win, a glass statue of Vuarnet was unveiled in his home town of Morzine.[1]
References
- ^ a b c d e f Sandomir, Richard (3 January 2017). "Jean Vuarnet, a Downhill Skiing Innovator, Dies at 83". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 7 January 2017.
- ^ "Sport: Trial by Snow". TIME. Vol. LXXV, no. 10. 7 March 1960. p. 55. ISSN 0040-781X. Archived from the original on 10 July 2009. Retrieved 2 January 2017.
- ^ "Sailer Takes World Downhill Title on Record Run of 2 Minutes 28.5 Seconds". The New York Times. UP. 10 February 1958. p. 30. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2 January 2017.
- ^ a b Ramsay, George (4 January 2017). "Jean Vuarnet: Skiing pioneer dies aged 83". CNN. Retrieved 7 January 2017.
- ^ "Jean Vuarnet dies at 83, Olympic champion was first to use metal skis and tuck position". Los Angeles Times. Associated Press. 2 January 2017. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
- ^ Uhrhammer, Jerry (23 February 1960). "Metal skis, wax key items in men's downhill". Eugene Register-Guard. No. 123. Oregon. p. 1D. Retrieved 30 June 2017 – via Google News Archive.
- ^ a b c Lazard, Alain (7 May 2016). "Jean Vuarnet". International Skiing History Association. Archived from the original on 5 August 2016. Retrieved 2 January 2017.
- ^ Sidell, Misty White; Foreman, Katya (4 January 2017). "Jean Vuarnet, eyewear icon and champion skier, dies at 83". Women's Wear Daily. Retrieved 2 July 2017.
- ^ Walsh, James (8 January 1996). "The Sunburst Sacrifices". TIME. Vol. 147, no. 2. p. 45. ISSN 0040-781X. Archived from the original on 10 July 2009. Retrieved 2 January 2017.
- ^ Castex, Lucrece (2 January 2017). "Ski - Disparition de Jean Vuarnet" [Ski - Jean Vuarnet passed away]. La Signare (in French). Archived from the original on 3 January 2017. Retrieved 2 January 2017.
External links
- Jean Vuarnet at FIS (alpine)
- Jean Vuarnet at Olympics.com
- Jean Vuarnet at Olympedia
- Jean Vuarnet – Vuarnet.com biography
- Jean Vuarnet - La méthode de l'oeuf (1961) on YouTube (in French)