The Olympic Winter Games are interwoven like a long-thong binding into the story of my coming to Utah. And, although not the first to catch my attention, the Games of 1968 held in Grenoble played a singular role.
Having returned to L.A. from a month-long jaunt south of the border just in time for the first of the alpine events, the men’s downhill, we settled into a comfort zone of expectations which included successes from Team USA slalom stalwarts Billy Kidd and Jimmy Heuga — silver and bronze medalists respectively from the 1964 games at Innsbruck.
A couple of other skiing heroes to emerge from the Innsbruck Games were Austrians Pepi Stiegler and Karl Shranz. Stiegler edged out Kidd and Heuga to win the slalom while taking bronze behind teammate Shranz in the GS. Pepi would not be with the team four years later in Grenoble, but Shranz would be there and find himself involved in quite the controversy.
Jean Claude Killy, a 24-year old phenom from Val d’Isere, France, had become the next big thing in alpine racing leading up to the Games and he wouldn’t disappoint. By the time the slalom came around, he had already pocketed gold medals in the downhill and GS.
If, by chance, he were to also win the slalom, he would become the first to sweep all three alpine disciplines since Austrian Toni Sailer had accomplished the feat at Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, back in 1956. I was ambivalent as to whether I wanted Killy to succeed in that a large poster of Sailer had hung on my adolescent Idaho-panhandle bedroom wall for years before the family moved to California.
But back to Grenoble in 1968, when impenetrable fog and mist combined to reduce visibility on the slalom course to effectively zero. The racers lobbied, to no avail, for a postponement. A break in the weather, however, allowed Killy to post a slim lead after the first run, and, then again after the second.
Only Schranz stood between Killy and Olympic history but, as the fog once again invaded the course, Schranz pulled up, saying he had seen a man in black approaching through the fog. After being allowed a restart, he bettered Killy’s time and even attended the post-race news conference as the gold-medal winner.
The powers that be, however, later announced that Shranz had missed a gate prior to pulling off the course during the original run and therefore was disqualified. This gave Killy the sweep of alpine gold he was after. Shranz and the Austrians were not happy!
About a week later I hit the road with a car-full of fellow outside agitators on what would become my first extended trip to Utah. Various friends from southern California had been hanging out in Park City on and off since they had first fired up the ski lifts and reopened a few long-closed watering holes. It was time to check in.
What had made the aftermath of the Grenoble slalom so enticing to us was that a “grudge-match” race was already scheduled and it would be taking place not all that far from Park City. “Killy vs. Shranz II” would come to pass on Ruthie’s Run of Ajax Mountain in Aspen around the Ides of March.
So, following a few weeks of skiing and general old-mining-town debauchery, we headed out to Colorado. Aspen treated the arrival of Killy like New York had the Beatles a few years earlier — which, due to the fact that it brought a lot of womenfolk to town, worked for us.
In those days fans were allowed to hike up the run along with the racers as they do that thing they do with their hands while channeling their inner GPS. Suffice to say that sorority-sized throngs moved upward step by step alongside Jean Claude. The hills were alive with the sounds of, if not music, at least a melodic form of heavy breathing.
As it turned out, the grudge match was a flop. Billy Kidd beat them both. Aspen resident and U.S. Ski Team member “Spider” Sabich, who came in fifth in the Grenoble slalom, didn’t finish. He was busy living on borrowed time.
For whatever reason, we headed south and, after hooking up with old Route 66, moseyed westward. We would end up back in Mexico where they were preparing for their own Olympics a few months off.
They stick to your ribs, these Olympic Games! You never know what story line you’ll recall down the road. Although I’ll tell you one thing, there isn’t a Zamboni’s chance in hell that I’ll ever forget last Sunday’s Canada vs. USA gold medal hockey game. It flat out held my “attencion.”
Jay Meehan is a culture junkie and a free-lance writer with a background in commercial and community radio, among other pursuits. He has been a columnist and feature writer for various Park City publications going back to 1973.