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Jean Vuarnet

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Jean Vuarnet
1960s photo of Vuarnet
Personal information
Born(1933-01-18)18 January 1933
Le Bardo, Tunisia
Died1 January 2017(2017-01-01) (aged 83)
Sallanches, Haute-Savoie, France
OccupationAlpine skier ♂
Spouses
​
​
(m. 1958; died 1995)​
Christiane Veillon
​
​
(m. 1999; died 2012)​
Children4
Olympics
Teams1 – (1960)
Medals1 (1 gold)
World Championships
Teams2 – (1958, 1960) (includes Olympics)
Medals2 (1 gold)
Medal record
Men's alpine skiing
Representing  France
Olympic Games
Gold medal – first place 1960 Squaw Valley Downhill
World Championships
Gold medal – first place 1960 Squaw Valley Downhill
Bronze medal – third place 1958 Bad Gastein Downhill

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

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Jean Raoul Célina André Vuarnet was born in Le Bardo, Tunisia, on 18 January 1933. His father Victor Vuarnet had a medical practice there. The next year, his family moved to Morzine, France, where he grew up.[1][2] He was introduced to skiing as a young child, childhood friends with future director Roger Vadim.[2] His parents divorced in 1943, after which he was sent to boarding schools in the cities of Paris and Lyon.[2]

He attended law school at the University of Grenoble (due in part to Grenoble's location being fit for skiing), enrolling in 1952.[1][2] During this period he skied competitively and was romantically involved with Christiane Veillon, a French Canadian woman. Veillon became pregnant, and mailed him a letter announcing this, but letter was intercepted by Vuarnet's father, who did not tell his son. As a result she returned to Montreal on her own.[2]

Career

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As Vuarnet believed himself to not be a natural skier, he instead focused on studying technique of successful skiers.[2] He trained under French skier and physical education instructor Georges Joubert [fr], and won several races (downhill, slalom, and combined) in the 1952 French University Games. He and Joubert co-authored a book on ski techniques in 1956, Ski ABC: Technique Moderne.[2]

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.[3] Previously, he had won bronze in the same event at the World Championships in 1958 at Bad Gastein.[4] 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).[2] 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[5] - 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,[6] on which he won the downhill at the 1960 Winter Olympics. The tenth racer on the course, he won by a full half-second.[7]

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.[8]

Business

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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.[5] He was appointed the director of tourism in Morzine.[2]

Vuarnet also gave his name to the Vuarnet sunglasses brand in 1961, now owned by a U.K. private equity group, Neo Investment Partners.[1][9][2]

Personal life

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In 1958, he married Edith Bonlieu, a three-time French women's ski champion and sister of François Bonlieu.[10] They had three sons, Alain, Pierre, and Patrick, born in 1962, 1963 and 1969, respectively.[8][2] Their marriage grew strained as his success increased, however, and Edith joined the notorious Order of the Solar Temple group.[2] Edith and their youngest son Patrick were among the members of the Solar Temple who committed mass suicide in 1995.[11] Following their deaths, Vuarnet wrote a book about the case, Ils ont tué ma femme et mon fils, lit. 'They killed my wife and son', telling of her behavior prior to the deaths.[12][13] The Vuarnet family dispute that it was a mass suicide, proposing instead that they were murdered by outside forces.[13]

He married his second wife Christiane Veillion, his past lover, in 1999; he met their daughter Catherine.[2][8] Christiane died of a heart attack in 2012.[8] After a stroke, Vuarnet died at age 83 in 2017 at Sallanches, Haute-Savoie.[14] On the 50th anniversary of his gold medal win, a glass statue of Vuarnet was unveiled in his home town of Morzine.[1]

Publications

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  • Joubert, Georges; —— (1956). Ski ABC: Technique Moderne (in French). Editions Bressanes. OCLC 7713816. Translated into English by John Ceely in 1957
  • —— (1961). Notre victoire olympique (in French). Paris: Arthaud. OCLC 21279520.
  • —— (1996). Lettre à ceux qui ont tué ma femme et mon fils (in French). Paris: Fixot. ISBN 2-221-08301-6. OCLC 409505342.

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e 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.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Donnelly, Marea (4 January 2017). "Love born on mountain tops perished in 'the pit of hell'". The Daily Telegraph. ProQuest 1854862120. Archived from the original on 1 July 2024. Retrieved 7 September 2024.
  3. ^ "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.
  4. ^ "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.
  5. ^ a b Ramsay, George (4 January 2017). "Jean Vuarnet: Skiing pioneer dies aged 83". CNN. Retrieved 7 January 2017.
  6. ^ "Skier Jean Vuarnet, who struck gold with tuck position, dies". Associated Press. 2 January 2017. Retrieved 4 September 2024.
  7. ^ 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.
  8. ^ a b c d Lazard, Alain (7 May 2016). "Jean Vuarnet". International Skiing History Association. Archived from the original on 5 August 2016. Retrieved 2 January 2017.
  9. ^ 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.
  10. ^ "Un mariage de champions: Edith Bonlieu s'appellera désormais Mme Vuarnet" [A marriage of champions: Edith Bonlieu will henceforth be called Mme Vuarnet]. L'Impartial (in Swiss French). No. 24830. 14 November 1959. p. 25. Retrieved 25 June 2024 – via e-newspaperarchives.ch.
  11. ^ 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.
  12. ^ Sage, Adam (18 April 2001). "The fatal attraction". Ottawa Citizen. The Times of London. pp. A15. ISSN 0839-3222. Retrieved 2 September 2024 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. ^ a b Richard, Jean-Alphonse (24 January 2023). "Secte de l'Ordre du Temple Solaire : la famille Vuarnet au cœur du massacre" [Order of the Solar Temple cult: the Vuarnet family at the heart of the massacre]. RTL (in French). Retrieved 8 September 2024.
  14. ^ 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.
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