William Besse (born March 10, 1968 in Bruson ) is a former Swiss ski racer . He mainly drove downhill and super-G . With a total of four victories and nine other podium places in the Alpine Ski World Cup , he was one of the best downhillers in Switzerland in the 1990s.
Besse spent his childhood on his parents' mountain farm in the Val de Bagnes in Lower Valais . In 1985 he went to Las Leñas in Argentina at his own expense to take part in summer training. It was there that national coach Karl Frehsner became aware of his talent and from then on Besse was allowed to train with the national team. At the Junior World Championships in Bad Kleinkirchheim in 1986 , he won the gold medal in the downhill, whereupon the Swiss Sports Aid Foundation named him the Swiss young athlete of the year. In the following season, he decided the downhill classification of the European Cup for himself. At the end of 1987 it was used for the first time in the World Cup and on January 9, 1988, when it was seventh on the descent in Val-d'Isère , it won World Cup points for the first time.
He was unable to participate in the 1988 Winter Olympics because of a broken hand. In 1989 he achieved his best result at world championships in Vail , fifth place in the downhill (behind the German surprise winner Hansjörg Tauscher and three other Swiss). In the 1989/90 season Besse drove out two podium places, he finished the world championship downhill in 1991 in Saalbach-Hinterglemm in eighth place. Before the 1992 Winter Olympics , he could not prevail in the team's internal qualification. On March 6, 1992, however, he won a World Cup downhill run for the first time in Panorama .
Besse's second World Cup victory followed in Val Gardena on the Saslong . The 1993 World Cup in Morioka was disappointing for him (23rd place). In January 1994 he celebrated his most prestigious victory when he won the Lauberhorn downhill run in Wengen . However, the 1994 Winter Olympics were again disappointing when he was only 16th in the downhill and retired in the Super-G. The last World Cup victory of his career occurred on March 16, 1994 in Vail. In the years that followed, Besse could never quite reach his previous level of performance and only achieved a podium position three times.
At the end of the 1998/99 season, Besse announced his resignation. Since then he has been running a ski school in Verbier and organizing races. He also works as a consultant for Télévision Suisse Romande . For a few months a year he lives in a lonely wooden hut in the Canadian province of Québec . In his free time, he makes wooden sculptures with a chainsaw. Besse is a cousin of the ski racer Justin Murisier .
Switzerland
