Arnold Lunn

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Arnold Lunn memorial in Murren . The text reads: "Arnold Lunn set the first slalom run here in 1922 and organized the first world championship for downhill and slalom in 1931." The year of birth 1898 on the monument is wrong.

Sir Arnold Lunn (born April 18, 1888 in Madras , India , † June 2, 1974 in London , England ) was a British skier , mountaineer and writer . He is considered a pioneer of modern alpine skiing .

Life

His father Henry Simpson Lunn (1859-1939) was a Methodist priest and founder of the travel company Lunn's Travel Agency, which later changed to Lunn Poly and is now part of the TUI group.

The young Arnold Lunn studied at Balliol College of Oxford University . He was a passionate mountaineer and founded the Oxford University Mountaineering Club in 1909 . Since his father's company also organized winter sports trips to Switzerland at the time , Arnold Lunn was often there.

He soon became a well-known skier and developed the modern rules of downhill and slalom , which were used for the first time in 1921 and 1922 at the British state championships in Mürren in the Bernese Oberland and were adopted by the world association FIS in 1928 . Also in 1928 he ran the first Arlberg-Kandahar race in St. Anton am Arlberg together with Hannes Schneider . Lunn was also the organizer of the first Alpine World Ski Championships in Mürren.

Originally, Lunn shared his father's Methodist faith and even spoke out publicly against Catholicism in his early years. After a conversation with the theologian and detective writer Ronald Knox , his religious views changed more and more and he converted to the Catholic faith in 1933, which he had previously condemned. He wrote numerous Catholic apologetic works. These were well received by fellow Catholic writers such as Hilaire Belloc .

Bibliography (selection)

  • The Mountains of Youth (1924)
  • Switzerland and the English (1944)
  • Mountains and Memory (1948)
  • The Story of Skiing (1952)
  • The Kandahar Story (1969)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Lunn, Arnold
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British skier, mountaineer and writer, founder of modern alpine skiing
DATE OF BIRTH April 18, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Madras , India
DATE OF DEATH June 2nd 1974
Place of death London , England