 Poster: A snowHead
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Really interesting series on Radio 4 called The Alps. Last week looked at how the Alps divide the beer-swilling north from the wine-quaffing south. This week's all about Switzerland. And next week's on something I've always wondered about - whether the British really invented downhill skiing. Apparently they did.
From the Radio Times for Tuesday March 23
Misha Glenny travels to Switzerland and France in pursuit of a myth - that it was the British who invented alpine sports. At the launch for the 125th anniversary of the Cresta Run , he discovers that the first British travellers to the Alps were either very rich, or very ill. With interviews from Fergus Fleming; Jim Ring, author of How the English Made The Alps; and Art Furrer, a Swiss hotelier who confirms that, yes, it is all true. Producer Miles Warde
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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I don't think the Brits 'invented' alpine skiing, we may have been responsible for turning it into a recreational activity thouhg.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| clarky999 wrote: |
| I don't think the Brits 'invented' alpine skiing, we may have been responsible for turning it into a recreational activity thouhg. |
To be a lot more specific what the Brits, or at least Ernst Goldsmith's old friend Arnold Lunn, are claimed to have invented, is persuading the Grindlewald railway to open in the winter to carry skiers uphill. Before then people climbed.
So what is today called "Alpine Skiing" does seem to be a Brit invention. But I'm sure Mr Goldfish knows a lot more about this than me.
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IIRC, I think we "invented" what one would now recognise as modern DH? I believe competition was based around the style of skiing previously. We introduced the event as a timed competition. I think this had something to do with Arnold Lunn.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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If anyones interested, it's on the Radio 4 iPlayer.
Link here
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Richard was too modest to admit that he invented skiing Sideways (still used by many skiers during turns and more generally by many snowboarders all the way down steeper slopes).
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| Quote: |
or at least Ernst Goldsmith's old friend Arnold Lunn
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I believe they were at Eton together
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Well here you go... http://history.fis-ski.com/ - according to the FIS the Russians started it 8,310 years ago. I can't believe they didn't have the odd race between themselves when they were not debating helmets and winter tyres. Sir Arnold got the rules sorted out about 8,200 years later - inventing something that late on is quite a claim eh? Normally an American trait.
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Interestingly i can play this even though i live in Ireland, Iplayer doesnt normanally work here
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| snowball wrote: |
| Richard was too modest to admit that he invented skiing Sideways (still used by many skiers during turns and more generally by many snowboarders all the way down steeper slopes). |
he may have invented it but i perfected it 
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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I merely invented a form falling, with style. And sitting in the middle of slopes. 
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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| Quote: |
| We invented Skiing |
That's pretty strong statement, don't you think? 
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How about 'we invented skiing as we know it today' ?
I'm just curious if the programme can back it up as it is the sort of thing drunk Brits like to claim, and it suggests here that the Swiss are confirming it is true. I'm sure that the Norwegians and Finns and Russians have attached planks to their feet for millenia, but that doesn't mean they did downhill and slalom and super gs.
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You know it makes sense.
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No question, we invented recreational skiing and ski racing.
Like soccer, and cricket, we now get thrashed at it - but we did invent it.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Although St Anton likes to claim that modern ski technique was invented there by Hans Schneider too...
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Poster: A snowHead
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| parlor wrote: |
No question, we invented recreational skiing and ski racing.
Like soccer, and cricket, we now get thrashed at it - but we did invent it. |
Could you at least call it football please - not soccer.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| parlor wrote: |
No question, we invented recreational skiing and ski racing.
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There is no question whatsoever.
"We" (as in the British) most certainly did not.
Recorded recreational skiing and ski racing originated in Norway, including the first of what could be described as slalom races.
Admittedly, most of what they initially did (in the late 19th/early 20th century) for both recreation and competition was what we now call nordic skiing (including ski jumping), rather than what we now call alpine skiing, but if we are just talking "skiing" for recreation and competition, there is no doubt whatsoever that the British did not invent it.
The first true downhill alpine skiing did probably originate in Switzerland and was done by British ex-pats.
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Actually what the Brits did was invent the ski Holiday, they also played a big part in developing Downhill skiing as a sport.
In Murren there is a Memorial to Sir Arnold Lunn, upon which is written the following "It was here in Mürren that Arnold Lunn set the first slalom in 1922 and organised the first world championship in downhill and slalom racing in 1931."
Sir Arnold was I believe the person who persuaded one of the Murren Hotels (possibly the only hotel in those days) to stay open for the winter with the promise that he would bring in sufficient people to justify the expense of doing so. In those days one had to walk up the hill before skiing down it, In 1913 the WAB was persuaded (very possibly by the Brits) to stay open in the Winter from Wengen to Kleine Scheidegg, regular winter opening on the Grindelwald side eventually occured in 1934 although prior to that it did run 3 trains a day up that side to carry the mainly English bobsleighers to the bob run, so I guess as a sport it could be said that true Downhill skiing started in 1913 when it became possible to go up the mountain by train instead of by foot
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Downhill skiing is broadly acknowledged as the invention of Norwegians. It was seen by British explorers heading for the Arctic Circle, who published articles in the 1830s. By that time, skis were widely used by the Norwegian military to get around mountains quickly.
Since skiing has a history of at least 4000-5000 years, and mountains have slopes, it's more than likely that prehistoric skiers were using gravity to slide downhill at quite an early time.
The Norwegian inventor and downhill skiing expert Sondre Norheim was working with sidecut in ski design in the 1850s. Gold miners in California were holding 'straight-line' ski races, using skis over 4m and 5m long, in the 1860s. They used a primitive form of ski wax.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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So, in essence, we British invented sitting on a train to do the nasty uphill bit.
Laziness is the font of innovation.
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tiffin, correct, though we also invented the ski holiday 
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Obviously the Norwegians have this one sewn up. In respect of alpine racing it is worth pointing out here that slalom derives from Norwegian and that while Arnold Lunn was critical in the development of alpine racing he was adapting previously existing concepts. In the case of slalom racing he was also aiming for a discipline that would train ski mountaineers in tree skiing. We're some way away from that now.
http://pistehors.com/backcountry/wiki/Articles/Crossing-An-Alpine-Pass-On-Ski
Is also worth a read. If I remember rightly this is the first instance of someone paying to go ski touring in the Alps (Conan Doyle sourced his skis from Norway). He also bought a long fat ski (8' by 4"). I'm sure they would have sucked on piste had such a thing exisited.
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You know it makes sense.
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The Kandahar Ski Club is named after the oldest downhill ski race in the world which, in turn, was named after Field Marshal Earl Roberts of Kandahar (who took his title from the relief of Kandahar). It was founded in 1924 by Sir Arnold Lunn and a group of Englishmen.
In those early days the rules for Downhill and Slalom races were being evolved and eventually, in 1931, Sir Arnold organised at Mürren the first World Championships in Downhill and Slalom Racing. He did the same in 1935, these being the only occasions in history when one country has organised the World Championships of any sport on the territory of another country. It was not until 1936 that Downhill and Slalom Racing were admitted to the Winter Olympic Games.
http://www.kandahar.org.uk/
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Poster: A snowHead
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The story of downhill skiing at the Winter Olympics
With the 2010 Winter Olympics underway in Canada, Great Britain is expected to have its usual lack of success in the blue ribbon downhill skiing events.
But, did you know that the sport owes its very existence to a father and son from rural Lincolnshire.
Simon Hare travels to the Swiss Alps to meet the 95 year old son and grandson of two men who transformed travel and winter sports.
And, he discovers how the sport came about, quite literally, by accident.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/lincolnshire/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_8506000/8506248.stm
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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As gorilla says, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was an early proponent of recreational skiing in the Alps, see this.
Note the quote (from the 1890s):
"the time will come when hundreds of Englishmen will come to Switzerland for a skiing season."
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Chris, that's a lovely piece of video - very nicely narrated and filmed, and it's the first time I've ever heard Sir Arnold Lunn's voice (he died in 1974) ... but ...
... the script perpetuates the myth that people only competed in skiing "one hundred years ago" by "travelling on the flat and across slopes." As above, people were racing down slopes 150+ years ago, and the British weren't involved at all.
Peter Lunn then reinforces the myth. He should know better, having written a book on the history of the sport!
It seems nice to believe that the British invented the idea of racing downhill on skis. What Arnold Lunn did was formulate a method of racing downhill through gates, against the clock, and he successfully lobbied the IOC to have gate-based events included in the Winter Olympics. He also wrote a large amount of brilliant literature.
On this occasion Wikipedia is more accurate than the Beeb, concerning Lunn's exact significance:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Lunn
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Programme starts in 45 minutes, then arguing can resume.
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FAQ
To be honest I don't care who invented it. The thing I do care is, that I can ski from October till April/May... daily 
Rest of us don't need holidays to ski 
