Ski Heroes

I have just moved to Verbier, Switzerland for the season to work here as a ski instructor. What a crazy development in life this is for me. After 26 years as a ski instructor in the Pacific Northwestern USA, which has been a good life, it feels like a new start here. I am reminded of my first few seasons at Mission Ridge, Washington. I always felt like I was skiing everywhere in the world all at once at Mission. The terrain and environment there is amazing for such a "small" place; an adventurous collection of rocky ridgelines full of chutes, thick woods and what seems like above treeline terrain - but isn't. Cold temperatures, dry snow, lots of sunshine and somewhat frequent windy conditions all combine to make Mission Ridge ski like a much bigger place somewhere else in the world - a lot like Verbier! Verbier covers a much larger area, but Mission Ridge and Verbier share so much when it comes to the environment, and, yes, vibe. But all this actually belongs in another post. Back to this topic another time.

Two nights ago I was drinking beer in a dark little place called the TBar - It is good to be back in my favorite bar. Stevens Pass locals will understand this, though the black melamine, UK bartenders and occasional European electronica track here don't truly take me back to our TBar. The name is enough. - Matthias, a German associate of mine, tells me about a great little "caveau" in the valley below which is an excellent evening experience, if you have the pull to get the proprietor to open it up. Matthias goes on to share the proprietor's name, Roland Collombin, and that he is also the owner of a Hahnenkamm trophy. I almost dropped my beer. Here is a link showing why the Hahnenkamm, in Kitzbühel, Austria is the most feared and prestigious downhill in the world.

The next day, I did some research about Roland Collombin. He not only won the Hahnenkamm ('74), but the Lauberhorn ('74) and the Olympic Downhill Silver medal ( Sapporo, 1972 ) when Switzerland 1- 2ed the Olympic DH podium - Bernhard Russi (1) and Roland Collombin (2).

In the 1973-74 season, Collombin had 6 consecutive World Cup DH podiums. In a career of 14 World Cup races he podiumed in 11, 8 wins & 3 - 2nds! 1 World Championship win for 1 start and 1 Olympic Silver for 1 start; Collombin lorded over the competition during his short career. Franz Klammer was often his second. Klammer won his second World Cup podium at Val d'Isere in December of 1974, after Collombin suffered a horrible crash during a training run - breaking his back and ending his 1974-75 season. The following season, on December 7, 1975 Roland suffered a second horrible crash at the same jump in Val d'Isere. This crash crushed several vertebrae and ended his active ski racing career.

Roland was born, raised and still lives here in the town of Versegères, a few minutes from the télécabine to Verbier. He is a national hero in Switzerland. I am going to try to have raclette in his caveau for sure.

...Continuing the Verbier/Mission Ridge comparison... Mission also has a rich history of local heroes. Though he is not a local boy, Bill Johnson trained at the Mission Ridge Ski Training Academy. Bill Johnson was the 1st male from the United States to win an Alpine Skiing Olympic Gold Medal. There was a day when everyone, a fan of skiing or not, had an immediate reaction to that name. Bill was... is... a controversial figure.

Bill Johnson also had a short but illustrious career. He won the Lauberhorn '84 in Wengen, the WC DH at Aspen '84 and in Whistler, BC '84. He had 4 world class downhill wins in 4 months. In 16 World Cup Starts Bill won 3 Podiums, all 1sts, 1 World Championship start, 1 Olympic Gold medal for 1 start; Sarajevo, 1984. After the 1984 season nagging back and knee injuries kept him off the podium, though he finished in the top 10 in a number of World Cup events. Years later, at the age of 40 Bill Johnson came out of retirement and staged a comeback, trying to qualify for the 2002 Olympic Games in Salt Lake City. Like Collombin, Johnson suffered a horrible crash, his at Big Mountain in Whitefish Montana. It ended his comeback attempt. He spent 3 weeks in a coma and to this day suffers from the effects of the crash.

To some it may seem like a stretch to compare these two champions. Many people refuse to consider Bill Johnson a champion or a hero. He has, over the years, had an incredible amount of bad press. Take a moment though, to consider that what he did for alpine skiing in the United States is easily comparable to what Collombin did for Switzerland's nation of proud skiers. Also take note of the human interest story/interview with Johnson in the Sarajevo '84 link above when Bill acknowledged he was not an athlete, just a guy who skied fast. He may have seemed disrespectful in some ways, but I think he knew the score. He respected the true athletes he competed against, their hard work, and dedication. He has always respected the sport of skiing in the most real way possible. His story was then and is now a story of triumph, success and achievement. Whether the success lies in a judge believing in another way to treat a young man on the wrong track, that young man changing his life, or more recently as he has struggled back from the death of his young son in 1992 and the terrible trauma he suffered trying to stage his comeback.

Back in 1984 Franz Klammer called Bill Johnson “a nosepicker” on international TV. Plenty of ski coaches and racers leveled insults at Johnson as a person, skier and competitor; especially during his short time at the top of the ski racing world. In looking for information on Johnson I am happy and surprised to find that there is quite a bit of positive copy to be found and fairly recent recognition. Part of the reason I began writing this blog was to illustrate that it is more difficult to really live as a skier in the United States. The skiing nation in the United States has made strides at home and not only abroad as a team of hard-working competitors, athletes and champions. I am not trying to credit Bill with all of it, but he certainly gets some.

I have a lot of ski heroes. Bill Johnson is one of them. Roland Collombin is too. I didn't expect to come here and discover new heroes, but I have a feeling I'll meet a few more while I am here. Like everything in life, heroes are what you make of them. Bill Johnson is my hero because of the things he did well, the things he did right, the way he believed enough in himself to stand up against all the challenges he faced, different though they were than Collombin's demons. Collombin is my hero because he was a natural who had a family that helped build him the opportunity to take it as far as he could go. He didn't seem to have any demons. He believed in himself enough to take it far beyond the edge, enough that once beyond the edge, he still believed. I can't help but wonder how different the history of ski racing might be had things been different, but they aren't, so we have Collombin's amazing, but short career to celebrate.

Collombin and Johnson disprove the assertion of one of my other controversial heroes... Hunter S. Thompson. He said:

"The Edge... There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. The others- the living- are those who pushed their luck as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back..."

Collombin did not pull back. He kept going. He blew past the edge at high speed, dusted himself off and promptly did it again AND survived again. He knows things most of us don't. So does Bill Johnson. Hunter was right about there being no honest way to explain the edge. If Johnson or Collombin tried to explain it to us we simply could not understand. We would have to go over ourselves... and survive. Hunter was wrong when he said the only ones who have gone over the edge were no longer among the living. This perspective could have been useful to the man.

Collombin remains one of Switzerland's golden boys and is well-respected as a champion throughout the skiing world. He didn't give the muckrakers a lot of copy like Johnson and Bode Miller seem to have done. Europe's skiing heroes are not completely insulated from bad press, though. Last year's Swiss Golden Boy, Didier Defago, who was injured early this World Cup season and is out for the remainder, is suffering some bad press here. Instead of posting any of that I will post this cool video of Didier which delivers a message of mutual respect between different factions of the competetive ski industry. Besides the mountains and the great skiing, the coolest thing about being here is the mutual respect mountain riders have for each other here. It's all just "skiing." There is a lot of competition for work in Verbier. There are many ski schools in the village. The competition does not seem to create adversity between us all as individuals or skiers... except for, troublingly, the ONE OTHER U.S. citizen I have met here in town! Go figure.

Thanks for reading, and bear with me if you will. I am new at this.

Stan