The Swiss Miss Their Edge in the Ski World

The Swiss Miss Their Edge in the Ski World
An Alpine Nation PondersA Downhill Trend in Medals;Oh, The Dreaded Austrians
By PETER WALDMANFebruary 14, 2006; Page A21
SESTRIERE, Italy -- In the annals of Swiss national crises, it was hardly on par with the 15th-century wars against the Hapsburgs. Yet for a banking haven that prides itself on its plucky, Alpine independence, the futility of Swiss ski racers last winter forced Switzerland to confront some troubling questions about its identity.
"Are we still a skiing nation?" has been the refrain among commentators and sports officials in the columns of Swiss newspapers. One even pondered the unthinkable: "Have we become a nation of snowboarders?"
Bruno Kernen competing above. His bronze in the men's downhill on Sunday ended a Swiss medal drought but rejuvenating Switzerland's winning skiing traditions will take work.
Swiss ski racing is in steep decline, and it's going to take a lot more than Bruno Kernen's bronze medal in the Olympic downhill on Sunday to pull it out. For the first time in 40 years, Switzerland's skiers didn't earn a single medal at the Alpine World Championships in Bormio, Italy, last March, nor did they win a single race on the 2004-2005 World Cup circuit. Mr. Kernen's bronze this week equaled Switzerland's entire medal haul in Alpine skiing at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. The Swiss will be lucky to surpass that in the days to come.
Madonna and McDonald's
Swiss snowboarders have fared much better in recent years. But like other wildly popular imports from America -- Madonna and McDonald's come to mind -- snowboarding, in the cultural hierarchy, is still for slackers.
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The question now: Can Swiss ski racing bounce back? Or is the national sport destined to become a mere weekend recreation -- a quaint, high-mountain pastime that exists largely for tourists, like goat herding or making cheese?
"Swiss parents must wake up," says Hansruedi Laich, a banker who was recently appointed chief executive officer of the Swiss Ski Federation. "We are a winter-sports nation. Train your children! Go skiing!"
The fall of Swiss ski racing has coincided with the rise of their trans-Alp rivals, the Austrians. Though a slightly smaller nation, Switzerland dominated Austria in skiing throughout the 1980s, winning, at its peak, no fewer than 14 medals at the Alpine World Championships in 1987. In last year's championships, Austria bagged 11 medals, while not a single Swiss made it onto the podium.
Black Border Days
"Swiss people don't care about losing to the French or the Americans; we like Bode Miller," says Walter Marti, a longtime skiing writer for Blick, a Zurich newspaper known to publish a black border around its front page on particularly ignoble days for Swiss ski racing. "But we don't like losing to the Austrians."
Bruno Kernen at his recent medal ceremony.
The "Bormio disaster," as Swiss ski officials call last winter's drubbing, spurred public soul searching, and the quintessential 21st-century response, an advertising campaign. To raise money and awareness, the Swiss Ski Federation plastered the nation with posters last spring depicting a Swiss ski racer alongside other endangered species such as a rhino, a whale and a gorilla. The caption: "Swiss ski stars are a threatened species. Save them."
To revive Swiss ski racing, officials say, the nation's most-talented young athletes need to be lured back to skiing from soccer, snowboarding and making money. For that, the Swiss Ski Federation is trying to raise about $3 million in corporate sponsorships and private contributions over the next four years. The money is targeted for a national ski academy, where the best teenage racers can attend high school while training year-round. Switzerland's existing ski academies are private and unaffordable to all but the wealthy.
Mr. Kernen, Switzerland's 33-year-old Olympic hero this week, acknowledges his own long career as an elite racer is unusual for the son of a chauffeur from the city of Bern. He almost quit ski racing as a boy because his parents couldn't afford equipment and training. But after only a year of competition at the regional level, he made the national ski team, which picked up his expenses from there.
'It's Time to Party!'
His third-place finish Sunday at the Agnelli-built ski resort of Sestriere exhilarated the many Swiss fans who made the two-hour drive. Prancing through the Sestriere's main plaza, the Bruno Kernen fan club -- 17 members strong, including the skier's dad, Franz -- filed into the Swiss hospitality house, chanting "Now it's time to party!" At the bar, Rudi Stettler of Lausanne, a retired traffic manager for Alcoa attending his 11th Olympics, says it will take at least four more years to get Swiss skiing back on track.
"The Austrians and Norwegians teach their kids to work hard, to win," he says. "It's too easy in Switzerland to make money. We're soft."
At a reception in Turin, Franz Klammer, Austria's own legendary downhill racer, smiles when asked why his countrymen beat the Swiss so handily these days. "Every young kid in Austria wants to become a ski racer," he says. "It looks like the Swiss don't have this pressure from their youth."