Jean-Claude Killy

Jean-Claude Killy
nation	France
birthday	30th August 1943 (age 76)
place of birth	Saint-Cloud , France
Career
discipline	Downhill , giant slalom , slalom , combination
status	resigned
End of career	April 7, 1968
Medal table
Olympic games 3 × 0 × 0 × World championships 6 × 0 × 0 ×
winter Olympics gold Grenoble 1968 Departure gold Grenoble 1968 Giant slalom gold Grenoble 1968 slalom  Alpine World Ski Championships gold Portillo 1966 Departure gold Portillo 1966 combination gold Grenoble 1968 Departure gold Grenoble 1968 Giant slalom gold Grenoble 1968 slalom gold Grenoble 1968 combination
Placements in the Alpine Ski World Cup
Individual world cup victories 15 (18 including Grenoble)  Overall World Cup 1. ( 1967 , 1968 )  Downhill World Cup 1. (1967)  Giant Slalom World Cup 1. (1967, 1968)  Slalom World Cup 1. (1967)
Podium placements 1. 2. 3.  Departure 5 (6) 1 1  Giant slalom 6 (7) 1 1  slalom 4 (5) 1 1

Jean-Claude Killy (born August 30, 1943 in Saint-Cloud ) is a former French ski racer . At the end of the 1960s he dominated alpine ski racing and won three Olympic gold medals , six world championship titles and twice the overall ranking of the ski world cup .

He then worked as an advertising medium, car racing driver, film actor and entrepreneur. Since the 1980s, Killy has primarily appeared as a sports official . He was Co-President of the Organizing Committee of the 1992 Winter Olympics and Director of the Tour de France . From 1995 to 2014 he was a full member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and has been an honorary member ever since.

In 1999 he was voted France's Sportsman of the Century . The Oreiller-Killy slope in Val-d'Isère is named after Killy and his compatriot Henri Oreiller . On November 19, 1999, he was honored with the “World Sports Award” as best skier at the “World Sports Award” organized by ex-ski jumper Hubert Neuper in the Vienna State Opera ( Annemarie Moser-Pröll received this award as best female skier).

biography

Ski sports career

Killy was born in Saint-Cloud, a suburb of Paris . During the Second World War, his father Robert Killy, one was Alsatian with Irish ancestors, fighter pilots of the Royal Air Force . In 1946 the family moved to the winter sports resort of Val-d'Isère, where the parents opened a sporting goods store. Killy learned to ski at the age of three and competed in his first race at the age of eleven. In 1950 the parents divorced, after which the father sent him to Chamonix to boarding school. After graduating from school, he worked as a customs officer and drove races every winter.

In 1960 Killy was accepted into the national team. He was unable to take part in the 1962 World Championships in Chamonix because he was weakened due to a yellow fever infection that he contracted while serving in the Algerian army and had broken an ankle at the beginning of the season. The first significant success was the 1964 victory at the Arlberg-Kandahar - giant slalom in Garmisch-Partenkirchen . At the Olympic Winter Games in Innsbruck in 1964 Killy could not live up to the high expectations and was only fifth in the giant slalom. With the victories in the slalom and in the combination of the Hahnenkamm race in Kitzbühel in 1965 , he finally established himself among the world's best.

After several successes in the 1965/66 season, Killy was considered a great favorite for the 1966 World Cup , the only one in the southern hemisphere so far: In August 1966, he won the world championship in downhill and combined in the Chilean winter sports region of Portillo , and one was added fifth place in the giant slalom. The 1967 World Cup season , the first in history, was dominated by Killy almost at will. He won all five downhill runs, four of five giant slaloms and three of seven slaloms. With 225 points he won the overall standings by a clear margin and thus had a lead of 111 points over Heini Messner (121 points were not counted as discarded results - two downhill victories and one in the giant slalom); he also won all three discipline ratings. So far he is the only one who has managed to win both the overall World Cup and all individual disciplines in one season. The 1968 World Cup season was similarly successful . Although Killy was only able to win three more pure World Cup races in addition to the three victories at the Winter Olympics in Grenoble, which were also classified for the World Cup at the time, he again won the overall standings and the giant slalom discipline standings.

With his 18 World Cup victories (including the three victories at the 1968 Olympic Games, which were also part of the World Cup), Killy remained the most successful French man in the World Cup until December 29, 2016; Alexis Pinturault was able to catch up with him with the victory in the super combined in Santa Caterina and overtake him a short time later (victory in the giant slalom in Adelboden on January 7, 2017).

Jean-Claude Killy (center) in Grenoble 1968, with Guy Périllat (left) and Jean-Daniel Dätwyler (right)

The high point of his career, however, were the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble . As the second ski racer after Toni Sailer , Killy managed to win the gold medal in all three disciplines held at the time. In the descent Killy won with a lead of only eight hundredths of a second, while in the giant slalom he distanced his competitors by more than two seconds. The slalom victory was controversial: In the thick fog, Håkon Mjøen and Karl Schranz had been faster, but both had missed a goal (initially unnoticed). Schranz was also allowed to repeat his run because he was hindered by a piste worker crossing the route. He achieved the best time. Several hours later, however, Killy was declared the winner, as the jury decided that Schranz's goal mistake had happened before this incident. In order to be able to present himself with three gold medals despite the initial confusion, Killy had borrowed a medal from Marielle Goitschel . Thereupon a Swedish functionary threatened to disqualify him for "violating amateurism", which ultimately failed to materialize. Now France, like Austria with Toni Sailer in Cortina d'Ampezzo in 1956 , had a ski racer who could win all three Olympic disciplines including the associated world championship titles and the world championship in the (non-Olympic) combination. In 1967 and 1968 he was voted France's Sportsman of the Year (“ Champion des champions ”) by the sports newspaper L'Équipe and was also Europe's Sportsman of the Year . In 1965 and 1967 he was awarded the Skieur d'Or by the International Association of Ski Journalists (AIJS) .

Marketing the successes

As early as 1965, the journalist and World Cup co-founder Serge Lang gave him the nickname "King Killy", which was mainly picked up by the English-language print media. Mark McCormack , founder of the then little-known marketing company International Management Group , had worked out a plan before the 1968 Winter Olympics to capitalize on Killy's success. The contract, which had been kept secret because of the strict amateur regulations, came into effect shortly after the Games when Killy ended his sports career. In Europe, and especially in the US , Killy had numerous well-paid advertising deals, including with Chevrolet , United Airlines , Head , Rolex , Evian , Moët et Chandon and Coca-Cola . He presented himself in two television shows: In The Killy Style he presented various winter sports locations and in The Killy Challenge he competed against other celebrities in ski races in handicap format.

Before the official training for the 1000 km race in 1968 Killy explored the track

Even during his skiing career, Killy had tried his hand at motor racing . In the summer of 1967 he took part in the Targa Florio , a legendary long-distance race in Sicily , and won the race in the GT category with a Porsche 911 T. In 1968 he started together with Jean Guichet in the 1000 km race on the Nürburgring (26th place overall, 3rd place in the GT class up to 2 liters). With Bob Wollek he took part in the Le Mans 24-hour race in 1969 , but did not reach the goal. In November 1972, Killy returned to ski racing for a winter season when he was offered a twelve-race professional series in North America. He also won this event, received high prizes for it and was named professional world champion.

Killy met actress Danielle Gaubert . Together they played a couple of bank robbers in the 1972 film Snow Job (German: "Bank robbery on Monte Rosa"). The film received poor reviews and turned out to be a flop. The couple settled in Switzerland near Geneva and married in 1973. The marriage resulted in a daughter, and Killy also adopted two sons from Gaubert's first marriage. Killy founded Veleda-Killy, a ski clothing company that was later taken over by Rossignol . In 1983 he starred in the film Copper Mountain (starring Jim Carrey ).

Sports official

In 1977 Killy began a new career as a sports official and was accepted into the Alpine Executive Committee of the International Ski Federation FIS , of which he was a member until 1994. At the end of 1981, together with his friend Michel Barnier , Killy developed the idea of ​​helping the Savoie department to achieve an economic upswing by hosting the Olympic Games. In January 1983, they officially announced the city of Albertville's candidacy for the 1992 Winter Olympics . The project initially appeared to be in jeopardy, as Paris had already applied for the 1992 Summer Games. However, when the latter were awarded to Barcelona , Albertville again had a much better chance of success and was awarded the contract in October 1986.

Killy and Barnier led the Organizing Committee, formed on February 24, 1987, as co-presidents. However, after just thirteen days, Killy resigned after various local authorities had accused him of giving undue preference to his home parish of Val-d'Isère in allocating investments. Eight months later, his wife, Danielle Gaubert, died of cancer. François Mitterrand and Juan Antonio Samaranch asked Killy to reconsider his decision, whereupon Killy resumed the office of co-president on March 30, 1988. The event turned out to be a success in sporting and economic terms. However, both the great distances between the individual venues and the serious encroachments on nature met with fierce criticism.

Also in 1992, Val-d'Isère and Tignes merged to form the Espace Killy winter sports area. After winding up the Olympic Organizing Committee, Killy was President of the sports marketing company Amaury Sport Organization from 1993 to 2001 . In this role he was responsible for the organization of numerous major sporting events, including several cycling races, the Paris Marathon and the Dakar Rally . From 1994 to 2000 he was co-director of the Tour de France together with Jean-Marie Leblanc . In 1999 the Association of French Sports Journalists voted him France's “Sportsman of the Century”.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) elected Killy as a member in 1995. He performed various tasks for the IOC. He was Vice-Chairman of the Coordinating Committee for the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City (1996–2002) and Chairman of the Coordinating Committee for the 2006 Winter Games in Turin (2000–2006). From 2007 on, he was primarily responsible for coordinating the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi .

Killy campaigned with great personal commitment for the candidacy of Paris for the 2012 Summer Games, which, however, was narrowly defeated by London's application . In June 2007, he resigned as OC President of the 2009 World Ski Championships in Val-d'Isère to protest against the lack of political support and the slow progress in building a new media center. He supervised the unsuccessful candidacy of the city of Nice for the 2018 Winter Olympics . Annecy prevailed internally against Grenoble , Nice and Pelvoux (to ultimately be defeated in the allocation of the games against Pyeongchang ).

After the 2014 Winter Games, he resigned as a member of the IOC.

Sporting successes

Skiing

Olympic games

• Innsbruck 1964 : 5th giant slalom
• Grenoble 1968 : 1st descent, 1st giant slalom, 1st slalom

World championships

Note: Until 1980 the races at the Olympic Games were also counted as World Championship races.

• Innsbruck 1964 : 5th giant slalom
• Portillo 1966 : 1st descent, 1st combination, 5th giant slalom
• Grenoble 1968 : 1st descent, 1st giant slalom, 1st slalom, 1st combination

World Cup ratings

season	total		Departure		Giant slalom		slalom
	space	Points	space	Points	space	Points	space	Points
1967	1.	225	1.	75	1.	75	1.	75
1968	1.	200	2.	60	1.	75	2.	65

World Cup victories

date	place	country	discipline
January 9, 1967	Adelboden	Switzerland	Giant slalom
January 14, 1967	Wengen	Switzerland	Departure
15th January 1967	Wengen	Switzerland	slalom
January 21, 1967	Kitzbühel	Austria	Departure
January 22, 1967	Kitzbühel	Austria	slalom
January 27, 1967	Megève	France	Departure
March 3, 1967	Sestriere	Italy	Departure
March 10, 1967	Franconia	United States	Departure
March 11, 1967	Franconia	United States	slalom
March 12, 1967	Franconia	United States	Giant slalom
March 19, 1967	Vail	United States	Giant slalom
March 25, 1967	Jackson Hole	United States	Giant slalom
January 8, 1968	Adelboden	Switzerland	Giant slalom
February 9, 1968	Grenoble *	France	Departure
February 12, 1968	Grenoble *	France	Giant slalom
17th February 1968	Grenoble *	France	slalom
March 10, 1968	Meribel	France	Giant slalom
March 29, 1968	Rossland	Canada	slalom

* In 1968, the results of the Olympic races also counted for the World Cup

Significant victories in the pre-World Cup era

• Hahnenkamm race
  • Slalom (1965, 1966)
  • Combination (1965)
• Arlberg-Kandahar race
  • Giant Slalom (1964 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen )
  • Slalom (1966 in Mürren )
  • Combination (1966 in Mürren)

More Achievements

• six French championship titles (downhill 1966, giant slalom 1964 and 1967, slalom 1964, combination 1963 and 1964)
• Professional world champion 1972/73

Motorsport

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1969	Société Automobiles des Alpine	Alpine A210	Bob Wollek	failure	Shock absorbers

Individual results in the sports car world championship

season	team	race car	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	10	11	12	13	14th
1967	Porsche	Porsche 911	DAY	SEB	MON	SPA	TAR	ONLY	LEM	HOK	MUG	BRH	CCE	ZEL	OVI	ONLY
							7th
1968	Porsche	Porsche 911	DAY	SEB	BRH	MON	TAR	ONLY	SPA	WAT	ZEL	LEM
						10		26th
1969	Alpine	Alpine A210	DAY	SEB	BRH	MON	TAR	SPA	ONLY	LEM	WAT	ZEL
										DNF

Awards

• 1965 and 1967: Skieur d'Or
• 1967 and 1968: French Sportsman of the Year
• 1967 and 1968: Europe's Sportsman of the Year
• 1999: French Sportsman of the Century

source

• Jean-Claude Killy , in: Internationales Sportarchiv 20/2003 of May 5, 2003, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)

Web links

Commons : Jean-Claude Killy  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Jean-Claude Killy in the database of the International Ski Federation (English)
• Jean-Claude Killy in the database of Ski-DB (English)
• Jean-Claude Killy in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Biography of Jean-Claude Killy (English)
• Jean-Claude Killy in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Ça va faire , L'Humanité , February 8, 1992
2. ↑ Honor roll of the Hahnenkamm Slalom winner ( Memento of the original from January 25, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ Roll of honor winner Hahnenkamm combination ( Memento of the original from April 21, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ↑ Yves Perret: Killy's Winter, Never Equaled. International Skiing History Association, February 1, 2017, accessed March 28, 2019 . 
5. ↑ Volker Kluge : Olympic Winter Games. Chamonix 1924 - Nagano 1998. The Chronicle. 3rd, expanded edition. Sportverlag, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-328-00831-4 , p. 402.
6. ↑ Results of the 1000 km race in 1968
7. ↑ Goodbye, Broadway, Hello, Schranz ( Memento from April 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
8. ↑ Volker Kluge Olympic Winter Games. Chamonix 1924 - Nagano 1998. The Chronicle. 3rd, expanded edition. Sportverlag, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-328-00831-4 , pp. 688-689.
9. ↑ Kluge, pp. 689-690
10. ↑ Volker Kluge Olympic Winter Games. Chamonix 1924 - Nagano 1998. The Chronicle. 3rd, expanded edition. Sportverlag, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-328-00831-4 , pp. 691-692.
11. ↑ Killy démissionne ( Memento of the original from January 7, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , L'Équipe , June 30, 2007 
12. ^ Jean-Claude Killy: "Nice, une candidature aux JO séduisante" , Nice-Matin, October 28, 2008
13. ^ IOC press release on resignation
14. ↑ rubric «times-width-results»; first article “alpine skiing”, second paragraph . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna April 10, 1973, p. 12 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).