100th anniversary of the ski slalom

Skiers in Switzerland are preparing to celebrate a century of the slalom race, first held on January 21, 1922.

Going downhill fast has never been so much fun in Mürren, the highest ski resort in the Bernese Oberland, where the technical discipline was first staged by British ski-racing pioneer Arnold Lunn.

As a manager of his father Sir Henry Lunn’s tour-operating business (Lunn was also founder of Lunn Poly), Arnold organised races for his clients.

He made the small village his headquarters in a campaign to gain international recognition for the new sport of alpine (downhill) ski racing, against the opposition of the Nordicdominated International Ski Federation, which considered langlauf (cross-country skiing) and jumping the only worthwhile forms of competitive skiing.

Conscious that top-to-bottom downhill races were a test of bravery and strength rather than skiing skill, Lunn combined the downhill with a “style test” at the first British Ski Championships in 1921.

But amalgamating marks for speed and style proved unsatisfactory, and the following year Lunn came up with something different: a turning race down a gated course, decided on speed alone, with no marks for style.

Lunn wrote: “The object of a turn is to get round a given obstacle losing as little speed as possible, therefore, a fast, ugly turn is better than a slow, pretty turn.”

Almost 100 years ago to the day, four skiers contested the first slalom race.

Lunn founded the world’s first alpine ski-racing club, the Kandahar, at Mürren in 1924, and the first World Championship of Alpine skiing took place in February 1931.

Downhill and slalom racing made their Olympic debut at Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 1936, where Arnold Lunn’s son Peter captained the British team.

This week, a group of ski-racers will reenact the original slalom on the same course in Mürren, where a commemorative stone will be unveiled beside the Allmendhubel funicular in tribute to Lunn and the slalom pioneers. muerren.swiss

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