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autor: Jack - Zamieszczono: sob lut 18, 2006 1:24 pm
Alpine skiing: Allais, aged 94, skis on
Feb 18 2006
By Owen Thomas
SESTRIERE, Italy, Feb 18 (Reuters) - Despite almost a century on skis, Emile Allais, the oldest living Alpine skiing Olympic medallist, is too modest to give advice to fellow Frenchman Antoine Deneriaz, the new downhill champion.
Allais, 94, won the bronze medal for the slalom and the combined at the Garmisch-Partenkirchen Olympics in 1936 and shook hands with Adolf Hitler.
His long life has closely mirrored the evolution of Alpine skiing.
Allais was a triple world champion and he has also launched ski schools in France but he retains his humility.
"I have met Antoine many times and he has asked me for advice. But I'm no longer in the trade to the point I can help him," he told Reuters in a telephone interview from his home in Megeve in France.
"He also asked me how to manage his career now that he's Olympic champion. And I just wished him as much luck as I had.
"I don't know if Antoine will be remembered in 70 years, but I was lucky that my life and Alpine skiing almost started and grew together."
The Frenchman has lost none of his passion for the sport.
"Since the beginning of the Turin Olympics, I have spent my time in front of the screen with a special interest in Alpine skiing, of course. Antoine's victory was just formidable, a great emotion," he said.
"We're lucky in France to always have skiers who do well in the Olympic downhill like Jean-Luc Cretier or, of course, Jean-Claude Killy. After all, it's the blue riband event at the Olympics."
TEACHING METHOD
Allais, who maintained his reputation in the Alpine skiing world after his sporting career by launching a popular teaching method before developing resorts like Squaw Valley and his native Megeve, said the sport had changed radically.
"The year before the 1936 Olympics, I went to ski in Garmisch and I had the misfortune of breaking a ski. I just bought another pair at a local shop and that was it. Now they have a dozen pairs and their own technician," he said.
"Also you were forced at the time to ski the slalom and downhill with the same skis. Fancy starting a slalom today with skis two metres long?"
The pistes were also much rougher.
"When I was world champion in Chamonix, it was snowing and foggy in parts. There were even bushes in the middle of the course. There were no gates or safety nets.
"All you had was the starting gate and the finish line. We managed, especially as our goggles at the time were blurred after 200 metres.
"We just skied slower and since the snow was not levelled and softer, you did not hurt yourself when you crashed. We still managed to reach speeds at over 100 kph."
But the skiing pioneer felt the discipline was probably far more dangerous now.
"Pistes are like carpets or motorways and a single mistake can cost you dearly," he said.
A shrewd observer of Alpine skiing down the years, Allais said Austrian Toni Sailer, the 1956 downhill and giant slalom Olympic champion, was the man who impressed him most.
HITLER HANDSHAKE
"Sailer was just an incredible skier. And Killy of course. He brought intelligence to the sport. He was always planning and preparing his races so well."
Allais recalls his meeting with Hitler.
"He came to congratulate me after the Garmsich race and we shook hands. He looked a harmless enough man. When I realised later who he really was, it was a strange feeling."
Looking back, he said he was proud of the way his passion had transformed the valleys in which he was born.
"There was a great ski boom after the (first) War and it changed our way of life forever. In the 1930s, when we reached some villages on skis, the locals would hide in their farms and then the kids would come out to greet us. It was like some remote places in Africa today," he said.
"Now these people work on ski lifts, own hotels or are champions."
At 94, Allais still goes skiing every day.
"It's my drug. And at my age, it's less tiring to ski than to walk," he said.
autor: tomek - Zamieszczono: sob lut 18, 2006 5:29 pm
Spotkałem kiedy¶ na Kasprowym 90-latka, byłego hokeistę ... w doskonałej formie