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PILGRIMAGE TO OSLO’S HOLMENKOLLEN SKI HILL AND MUSEUM: T ORBJORN YGGESETH STARS FOR NORWAY AND THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
John Lundin
Author describes his visit to the Holmenkollen Ski Hill and Museum and describes Torbjorn Yggeseth's competition in the northwest.
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FREIDL PFEIFER AT SUN VALLEY
John W. Lundin
FREIDL PFEIFER COMES TO SUN VALLEY IN FALL 1938 - BECOMES SKI SCHOOL DIRECTOR IN 1939 In fall 1938, Alice Kiaer, the “godmother and self-appointed patroness of the U.S. Ladies Ski Team,” hired Friedl Pfeifer to coach the U.S. women’s ski team training at Sun Valley to prepare for the 1940 Olympic Games.2 Pfeifer, from St. Anton, Austria, was a top racer who won the downhill and slalom championship at the Arlberg - Kandahar race in 1936, and taught in the Hannes Schneider Ski School at St. Anton. Pfeifer left Austria after Germany took over the country. Harriman hired him to be a member of the Sun Valley Ski School staff and to make personal appearances to promote Sun Valley. He received a monthly salary plus room and board.
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SUN VALLEY’S 2025 WORLD CUP DOWNHILL COURSE IMPROVES DICK DURRANCE’S 1939 COURSE, AND RECAPTURES THE EXCITEMENT OF THE CLASSIC HARRIMAN CUP RACES
John W. Lundin
In early October 2024, the Sun Valley Resort received final approval to host the Audi
F.I.S. Ski World Cup Finals between March 22-27, 2025. Twenty five men and 25 women from
30 countries will compete in all four Alpine skiing disciplines - slalom, giant slalom, downhill
and super-G.
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1 937 - WWII: GLORY YEARS OF SKI JUMPING IN THE U.S., WITH INTENSE COMPETITION FOR CHAMPIONSHIPS AND TO SET NEW DISTANCE RECORDS
Jon W. Lundin
Ski jumping originated in Norway, where it was just a part of normal skiing. “Getting
from one farm to another in Norway in winter often involves a climb on skis up one side of a hill,
and ski jumping developed as a means of clearing obstacles when skiing down the other side.”
Harold “Cork” Anson, Jumping Through Time, A History of Ski Jumping in the United States
and Southwest Canada.
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SKI JUMPERS FROM KONGSBERG, NORWAY, DOMINATED COMPETITION 1938 - RUUD BROTHERS TOUR THE COUNTRY DEMONSTRATING THEIR SKI JUMPING SKILLS
John W. Lundin
This essay was written for the Norsk Bergverksmuseum (Norwegian Mining Museum) in
Kongsberg, Norway to provide a brief history of some of the ski jumpers from that small town
who competed in the U.S. and dominated the sport from the 1920s through the 1940s. This was
known as the Kongsberg Era, and the Kongsberg technique of ski jumping, developed by the
Ruud brothers, was the style used by most competitors.
In summer 2025, Mining museum staff contacted the Washington State Ski and
Snowboard Museum seeking information about ski jumping trophies in their collections that
were won by Kongsbergers in tournaments held in Washington state.
Skiers from Kongsberg dominated ski jumping in the Northwest in the 1930s and 1940s.
These include three jumpers from Vancouver, B.C., Nordal Kaldahl, Tom Mobraaten and Henry
Solvedt, known as the “Three Musketeers;” Sigmund and Birger Ruud; Roy Mikkelsen; Hjalmar
Hvam; Petter Hugstad; and a number of members of the famous Ulland family - Sigurd, Olav,
Arnie, Reidar and Ragnar Ulland; and others.
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PARATROOPERS TRAIN FOR MOUNTAIN WARFARE AT ALTA, UTAH
John W. Lundin
Before the U.S. entered WWII, but when the winds of war were blowing across Europe, the Army was preparing for future combat. Between 1940-1942, Army Mountain Troops learned their skills on Mount Rainier, Washington, before transferring to Camp Hale, Colorado.2 In late 1941, the Army hired Dick Durrance to train paratroopers how to ski and engage in mountain warfare at Alta, Utah. Durrance was the country’s outstanding ski racer of the 1930s, and was running the Alta Ski Area at the time. Dick Durrance (1914 - 2006) was “America’s first skiing superstar,” whose “skills as an Alpine skier... made him a legend,” according to his biography in the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame into which he was inducted in 1958. Durrance led the U.S. Ski Team at the 1936 Olympic Games in Germany. “He honed his skills at Dartmouth College under the tutelage of Otto Schniebs and Walter Prager,” and led its ski team to many victories. Between 1935 and 1941, Durrance won ten national titles in slalom, downhill and alpine combined, and three Harriman Cups at Sun Valley between 1937 and 1940 (the most prestigious ski title at the time), beating the best European skiers. In 1939, he won the U.S. Ski Association’s American Ski Trophy award, and received an honorable mention in 1940, along with Charles “Minnie” Dole whose idea it was for the Army to train ski troops.
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SUN VALLEY’S 2025 WORLD CUP DOWNHILL COURSE IMPROVES DICK DURRANCE’S 1939 COURSE, AND RECAPTURES THE EXCITEMENT OF THE CLASSIC HARRIMAN CUP RACES
John W. Lundin
In October, a delegation from the F.I.S. and US Ski & Snowboard (the country’s national governing body for skiing and snowboarding) gave final approval for the Sun Valley Resort to host the Audi F.I.S. Ski World Cup Finals between March 22-27, 2025. Twenty five men and 25 women from 30 countries will compete in all four Alpine skiing disciplines - slalom, giant slalom, downhill and super-G. International attention will be on Sun Valley, as European greats and their teams come for the tournament, and 2 million people are expected to watch the event in the U.S. alone. The final approval was based on the completion of the new Challenger race course on Warm Springs, which promises to be one of the most demanding downhill courses in North America. The name Challenger is a tribute to the Union Pacific Railroad and its Board Chair Averell Harriman, who built Sun Valley in 1936 as America’s first destination ski resort, and to the railroad’s Challenger railcars. In the 1930s, Challenger cars were part of U.P’s “age of streamliners,” luxurious and fast new trains made of aluminum and diesel powered that revolutionized passenger service. They “weren’t mere transportation — they were sophisticated hotels and restaurants on wheels,” with observation cars resembling the “parlor of a Gay Nineties madam.” The name also honors the resort’s new state-of-the-art Challenger chairlift, which serves Warm Springs and the new race course.
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ALF ENGEN AT SUN VALLEY: NORWEGIAN IMMIGRANT PLAYS A MAJOR ROLE IN THE RESORT’S EARLY YEARS - LEADS THE TRANSITION FROM NORDIC TO ALPINE SKIING
John W. Lundin
Alf Engen (1909-1997) immigrated to the U.S. from Mjondalen Norway in 1929,becoming the country’s best ski jumper and Four-Way competitor in the 1930s and 1940s. Alf was the oldest of the remarkable Engen family, that included his brothers Sverre and Karre(Corey). Alf was one of the pioneers who led the transition from Nordic events that dominated skiing in the early years, to alpine skiing in the latter part of the 1930s, along with Birger and Sigmund Ruud, Roy Mikkelsen, Hjalmar Hvam and others
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SKI JUMPING TOURNAMENTS AT MT. RAINIER, 1917 - 1924: WASHINGTON’S START AS A NATIONAL SKI JUMPING CENTER
John W. Lundin
SKI JUMPING ORIGINATED IN NORWAY & WAS BROUGHT TO THIS COUNTRY BY IMMIGRANTS Ski jumping originated in Norway, where it was part of normal skiing. National championship tournaments have been held at Oslo’s Holmenkollen Hill since 1892, with the winner getting the King’s Cup. Immigrants brought the sport to this country. Between 1870 and 1910, 1.5 million Scandinavians immigrated to the U.S., most settling along its Northern Tier. By 1930, 1.1 million residents were born in Norway or had parents that were, and 47% lived in New York City, Minneapolis or Seattle.
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SUMMER 1937: A SECOND AMERICAN TEAM COMPETES “DOWN UNDER”
John W. Lundin
During the summer of 1937, two American ski teams competed outside the U.S. One team raced in Chile in the first Pan-American Skiing Championship, a competition that lasted until 1950, that pitted the “Esquiadores Yanquis,” an officially sanctioned U.S. F.I.S. ski team, against South America’s best skiers. See my article, “Pan American Skiing Championships,” Skiing History, November-December 2023. That team consisted of Seattle’s Don Fraser and five members of the Dartmouth ski team, three of whom were on the 1936 Olympic team - Fraser, Warren Chivers and Ted Hunter.
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Stories about the David Rowlands Family of Ellensburg, Washington
Joy Main Smith
Including David's upbringing in Montgomeryshire Wales, his brother Robert's coming to America first, his siblings who stayed in the United Kingdom, and his 32 years with the Northern Pacific Railroad in Ellensburg.
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AMATEUR STATUS WAS A DOMINANT ISSUE IN THE EARLY DAYS OF SPO
John W. Lundin
In the late 1800s, professional sports attracted high-stakes gambling. The potential for bribery and extortion led to a general sense that paid athletes were corruptible and competitions untrustworthy. While betting on amateur events was common, a deep divide emerged between "pure" amateurs, who were said to compete for the love of the sport, and professionals, who competed for money in the form of cash prizes or other remuneration. This prejudice even extended to coaches who had been professionals, who were believed to be too tainted to coach amateurs. The distinction often boiled down to so-called gentleman-athletes, who had private fortunes, versus working-class athletes, who had to earn money to live and train. Sport governing bodies consisted almost exclusively of gentlemen, who often preferred not to compete with working people. Sports associations in sports such as rowing, skiing and the Olympic Games were quick to outlaw those perceived as “professionals” to keep competition limited to true amateurs. This resulted in much hypocrisy and discrimination over the years.
This gallery contains works by authors from the greater Central Washington area.
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