Serge Lang (journalist)

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Jean-Jacques "Serge" Lang (born June 6, 1920 in Mulhouse , Alsace ; † November 21, 1999 in Sternenberg , Alsace) was a French sports journalist . He achieved lasting fame as the inventor and co-founder of the Alpine Ski World Cup . From 1961 he was the first president of the Association Internationale des Journalistes de Ski (AIJS), and from 1973 to 1986 he was chairman of the World Cup Committee of the Fédération Internationale de Ski (FIS).

biography

Journalistic beginnings

Serge Lang was born in Mulhouse, Alsace in 1920 . After his father was transferred as station master, he grew up in Switzerland . During the Second World War , Lang worked as a film journalist in Basel and founded the film festival Le Bon Film as an enthusiastic cultural worker . After the end of the war, he reported on the Nuremberg trials and wrote a biography about the former Nazi Reich Minister Alfred Rosenberg, who had been sentenced to death .

He first came into contact with sport at the 1948 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz and made a name for himself as an influential sports reporter in the years that followed. While he wrote for newspapers such as the Blick , L'Équipe , Le Soir and La Suisse , he devoted himself to his two passions, skiing and cycling . In 1961 he founded the Association Internationale des Journalistes de Ski (AIJS), which still exists today, and was its first president until his death. The Skieur d'Or award given by the AIJS since 1963 for the best alpine skier of the season also bears the name Serge Lang Trophy .

Invention of the World Cup

The 1966 World Cup was officially announced in Portillo , Chile

In the mid- 1960s, competitive alpine sports, apart from the Olympic Games and World Championships, suffered from a lack of audience interest. During the Tour de France 1965 , race director and L'Équipe editor-in-chief Jacques Goddet approached Serge Lang in Roubaix with the request that he come up with a concept for a uniform competition to determine an overall ski winner. The ideas of the points system and rules - based on sailing and Grand Prix sport - only took up two double pages and led to the first staging of the Trophée de l'Équipe next winter. In January 1966, Lang concretized the plans for a sustainable format with the head coaches of the nations France and USA , Honoré Bonnet and Bob Beattie, as well as the ÖSV sports manager and lawyer Sepp Sulzberger. In particular, the term World Cup , which had only been in use for a few weeks for the upcoming soccer World Cup in England , was first defined. The eight-eye conversation took place on the Seidlalm above Kitzbühel , which has since been considered the unofficial "birthplace" of the World Cup.

During the World Championships in Portillo , Lang convinced FIS President Marc Hodler of his plans, which were also well received by the athletes. Among other things, the future double world champion Jean-Claude Killy spoke out in favor of the World Cup. The official decision was made on August 11, 1966, although the 1967 season with main sponsor Evian still took place without the influence of the FIS. It was not until May 1967 that the new format, designed with the emerging mass medium of television in mind, was handed over to the aegis of the international ski association at a congress in Beirut . Lang and Beattie initially doubted their decision and were convinced that the World Cup could also be held in cooperation with local organizers - similar to the Tour de France .

Further commitment

Serge Lang remained closely associated with the Alpine Ski World Cup. In 1973 he became chairman of the FIS World Cup Committee and in this role he took care of the organization of press centers and the selection of venues . For example, he gave races to Le Markstein in the Vosges , where he learned to ski as a child. In order to give “fast” specialists a better chance of winning the overall standings, he devised the Super-G discipline , which celebrated its World Cup premiere in 1982, as a faster giant slalom with wider goal distances . As AIJS President, he also maintained contacts with the FIS President and the national ski associations and encouraged newcomers such as the Crazy Canucks or the Yugoslavs to participate in the World Cup. In 1986 the FIS dismissed him in the course of the progressive professionalization of sport, whereupon Lang accused the association of lacking inventiveness.

In addition to his activities in the World Cup, Lang continued to write journalistic texts and reported on the 1974 UCI Road World Championships in Montreal . Once a year he published the magazine Biorama , which was devoted entirely to ski racing with statistics and athlete biographies. In retirement he planned a series of legendary races under the name Legend's Cup before succumbing to a heart attack on November 21, 1999 at the age of 79 .

Private life

Serge Lang was a hobby skier and best known for his stately height of almost two meters and a minimum weight of 120 kilos. In an obituary by the NZZ he was described as a “heavyweight” of ski racing and bon vivant who enjoyed feasting and loved society. He was considered a talented narrator and a person with whom one could argue and toast . At the various World Cup stations he autocratically claimed five-star hotels and helicopters for himself.

Lang was married to the German native Anneliese (Anne) until her death in 1989 . Her trademark was her Yorkshire Terrier Babsi, who accompanied her to press meetings and passed into the care of her husband after her death. The couple left behind a son, Patrick (* 1949 or 1950), who emulated his father professionally and from 1969 reported on the Alpine Ski World Cup as a journalist. He later became World Cup press chief and published together with his father. Lang was married to his second wife Jocelyn until his death.

bibliography

  • with Ernst von Schenk: Portrait of a human criminal. Based on the memoirs of the former Reich Minister Alfred Rosenberg. Zollikofer, St. Gallen 1947, DNB 452703379 , 356 pp.
  • Le ski: Et autres sports d'hiver. Larousse , Paris 1967, 416 pp.
  • with Jean Regali et al .: Innsbruck 1976. La Suisse / Édition Sonor, Geneva 1976, 216 pp.
  • with Erich Baumann, Dieter Baumann & Jochen Stellwaag: Le grand livre du Tour de France. Calmann-Lévy, Paris 1980, ISBN 978-2702103647 , 388 pp.
  • with Patrick Lang: La coupe du monde de ski alpin. Glénat , Grenoble 1986, ISBN 978-2723407427 , 185 pp.
  • How the World Cup Began. In: Skiing Heritage Journal Volume 20, No. 3, September 2008, pp. 8-11 (written in 1999 and published posthumously).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c d E. John B. Allen: Historical Dictionary of Skiing. Scarecrow Press, Plymouth 2012, ISBN 978-0-8108-6802-1 , p. 115 (English).
  2. ↑ a b Chroniques de Mario Brisebois. Ski Québec Alpin, January 9, 2017, accessed December 2, 2018 (French).
  3. ^ Patrick Lang: Presentation of the AIJS. Association Internationale Journalistes de Ski, accessed on December 4, 2018 .
  4. ↑ a b c d e Stefan Oswalt: The greatest was silent. Neue Zürcher Zeitung , January 5, 2017, accessed on December 2, 2018 .
  5. ↑ a b c Serge Lang: How the World Cup Began. In: Skiing Heritage Journal Volume 20, No. 3, September 2008, pp. 8-11. Online as The Creation of the World Cup ( Memento from June 6, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on December 4, 2018 (English).
  6. ↑ 50 years of the Ski World Cup in fast motion. Kleine Zeitung , January 4, 2017, accessed December 2, 2018 .
  7. ^ E. John B. Allen, p. 196.
  8. ^ A b c d e John Samuel: Serge Lang - Godfather of World Cup skiing. The Guardian , November 25, 1999, accessed December 2, 2018 .
  9. ^ Three journalists, 100 years of combined World Cup coverage. Aspen Daily News, March 18, 2017, accessed December 2, 2018 .
  10. ↑ Father of Skiing World Cup Dies. Ski Magazine, December 31, 1999, accessed December 2, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Long, Serge
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lang, Jean-Jacques (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French sports journalist
DATE OF BIRTH June 6, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Mulhouse , Alsace
DATE OF DEATH November 21, 1999
Place of death Sternenberg , Alsace