The French resort of Val d'Isère, situated in Savoie at 1,850 metres, soon became one of the essential pillars on the ladies' and men's FIS World Cup tours after becoming the first ever ski area to host a World Cup event in December - back in 1968.

First known for its big stars such as Olympic champions Henri Oreiller, Marielle and Christine Goitschel and then Jean-Claude Killy, Val d'Isère was only a tiny and little-known ski village with few hotel rooms when its by now famous ‘Critérium de la 1ère Neige' was launched in 1955.

Mostly a French event at the beginning, the ‘Criterium' slowly became an important international competition in the early 1960's when other teams began searching for good high-altitude training facilities to start preparing the real season that only began in January in the ‘Good Old days'.

In December 1963, Bob Beattie, the legendary Alpine Director from the US Ski Team, decided to come to Val d'Isère to train and race on the slopes at ‘La Daille' and ‘Solaise'. After entering the ‘Critérium', the American teams decided to spice their training camp in organizing a friendly match against the French skiers - racing in a parallel slalom!

First Nations competitions at Val d'Isère

It was an exciting event which soon developed into a true international team competition in March 1965 - the ‘World Series of Skiing" held at Vail, Colorado, at the end of the season. Only the three nations having collected Olympic medals in February 1964 at Innsbruck were invited by Beattie - Austria, France and USA. It was a big success in the resort of Vail Valley - which was not bigger than Val d'Isère in those days.

ABC Sports broadcasted the event which turned out to be so spectacular that it grew up in 1966 - with the Swiss and the Canadian joining the competition. "It was the first step toward the creation of the Alpine World Cup" remembers Beattie who lives at Aspen, Colorado. "It was obvious that alpine ski racing had become a world sport and that it was about time to launch a major tour as the World Cup," he added.

In 1966, it was too early to put Val d'Isère on the calendar despite the big names which already appeared then on the winners' list of both ladies' and men's competitions. The very ‘traditional' alpine ski world was not ready for this, yet the great successes of the French ski team in the 1960's helped the World Cup promoters to revolutionize the calendar and introduce World Cup races in December 1968.

130 World Cup competitions at Val d'Isère

Since then, more than 130 competitions have been staged in Val d'Isère - more than any other resort on the circuit! They greatly helped putting Val d'Isère and its great ski runs on the map - and developing it into a notorious world class resort. Now Val d'Isère is famous all over the world for its impressive ‘Espace Killy' which also includes beautiful high-altitude runs at Tignes.

Hundreds of kilometres of slopes and numerous ski-lifts all over the place are available for the passionate skiers. There are also around forty thousand beds waiting on the tourists from everywhere and several high-class hotels with great service too.

30 wins for Austria

On the men's side, the Austrians have been the most successful with a total of 30 wins followed by the Swiss, Italians, Swedes, American, Norwegians, Germans, French and also the skiers from Canada and yes - Australia! In December 1969, Malcolm Milne, who used to train with the French Team, surprisingly won the ‘OK' downhill two months before collecting bronze at the FIS Worlds at Val Gardena (!).

Switzerland's Michael von Grünigen has been the most successful racers with a total of four wins in giant slalom at La Daille where Hermann ‘Herminator' Maier triumphed three times in downhill, super-G and giant slalom - but he was also twice disqualified in giant slalom, the first time in 1997 for having taken-off his skis prior the infamous ‘red line" and two years later for spending too much time inspecting the first run!

Stephan Eberharter also won three times as did Franz ‘Kaiser' Klammer - but the Tyrolian was more consistent, also finishing three times 2nd and once 3rd - seven podium results in total for the giant slalom Olympic champion from 2002.

First World Cup Super-G at La Daille

The first ever World Cup Super-G took place at La Daille in 1982 (winner Peter Mueller from Switzerland) a year after the successful test at Alta Badia, Italy, where his colleague Pirmin Zurbriggen set the fastest time!

Over twenty athletes celebrated their first major success in Val d'Isère - including top-champions as Karl Schranz, Gustavo Thoeni, Piero Gros or Canada's Ken Read, the first ever North- American male to win a World Cup downhill. He was only 20 and remains the youngest winner in that specialty.

Italy's overall World Cup winner and slalom Olympic champion Piero Gros was only 18 in December 1972 when he surprised himself, his trainers and all his rivals in capturing the giant slalom despite his bib 45! It was his first ever World Cup race - as for Josef Strobl, the unexpected winner in downhill in December 1994 when he beat France's Luc Alphand after starting in 61st position! He too was only 20 and a few months.

Bad crash for "La Colombe"

In the meantime, Val d'Isère has organized races in all alpine disciplines - a pretty rare performance of its kind! Most of them took place at La Daille, on the ‘Oreiller-Killy" run mostly perfectly prepared by the experienced professionals of the ski club and the ski school.

The ‘OK' downhill course is pretty long and fast - and contains all kinds of difficulties. One of the best most known being the first long jump situated at the top - the "Bosse à Colombe" after Switzerland two-time-downhill World Cup champion Roland Collombin badly crashed there in 1974 and 1975.

There are other tough jumps later-on as the "Bosse à Emile" and also the demanding "Compression" particularly challenging by icy conditions...

Most female victories for Switzerland

On the ladies' side, Germany's Pamela Behr now called Mrs. Knauth is the youngest ever winner on the World Cup tour as she was only 16 in December 1972 when she won the slalom set at the foot of the ‘Solaise' course.

The Germans women enjoyed many victories at Val d'Isère, including 5 for double Olympic Champion Katja Seizinger, a three-time winner in 1996 in three days.

Yet the Swiss did better with 18 wins in total - including 4 for Marie-Therese Nadig, the 1972 Olympic champion in downhill and giant slalom. Austria celebrated 11 wins, France 7, USA 3, Italy 3, Canada 3 and Sweden 1.

In 1997, Val d'Isère hold four races in four different specialties and a ‘classic' combined within ten days - another record for the French organizing committee led for decades by Alsatian Jean-Claude Fritsch.  His successor is Emmanuel Couder, also director of the famous "Club des Sports" de Val d'Isère known by his very well-known symbol - an eagle also reproduced on the official awards presented to the skiers.

Interestingly enough, the US women had to wait a long time before their first ever win by Lindsey Vonn - former Lindsey Kildow - in 2005! Renate Goetschl, who has collected nearly fifty victories in numerous resorts, has never been successful at Val d'Isère - maybe it will be the case in February 2009!

The 2009 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships were run on the treacherous and spectacular ‘La Face' slopes also used during the 1992 Games (winners : Patrick Oertlieb (AUT) downhill, Kjetil Andre Aamodt (NOR) super-G, Alberto Tomba (ITA) giant slalom, Josef Polig (ITA) combined ).

© PKL