I have been teaching skiing for many years. As both a ski instructor and ski school director. I ski raced. I was strong and my skills earned me gold. One day I skied with Killy. We took the chair up together at Hunter Mountain in New York. When I say that we skied together I am talking about less than one minute. The man literally vaporized, disappeared .... I have never witnessed any human being ski the way Killy did / does ........
I had a race in Sun Valley probably 1980. Word was that he was on the mountain the day before the first race. At the end of the day, I spotted him passing me above a cat track, jumping across the bumps above. I thought, here’s my chance to ski behind JCK. I was close behind him as he dove into Warm Springs and started making his famous airplane turns - just screwing around. Same thing happened to me; he immediately put a lot of space between us and I had become uncomfortable with the speed I was at and slowed down. Never found him at the bottom. Humbling.
Jean Claude Killy was my ski God. I'm 67, he had it all, competitive, athletic, style, French, good looks, Women. Just look at the poetry of the avalemont style, notice the pole plant. That's how I learned on my 210's. No daylight between the legs, skiing the fall line. Modern shorter shaped skiis are so easy to turn, we used to say, if you moved your jaw the ski reacts. Skiers look like wide track 4x4's coming down the hill :) Nice video, thanks for posting this.
I am 67 as well and couldn't agree more on him being a ski god, my first pair of decent skis were Head Killy's, horrible skis in my opinion, I even had "jet sticks" clamped to my boots to mimic his Jet turns. Made sense being in the back seat at the time and considering the flex and lack of os skis back then had. I ended up becoming a ski instructor and taught for 26 years at a small area in Washington (Alpental) where I really leaned modern ski technique and that with modern equipment kept me going till a few years ago. May ski some in the future but between the cost and difficulty getting parking and lift ticket reservation it is hard. watching footage of him at the 68 olympics it was like a different sport than that of today. especially slalom. great to think about the old days things were much simpler for sure, better not so sure.
There are many great ski racers. However, for grace and style there are two at the top of the mountain, Killy and Stein Erikson. Both are superb athletes that, through hard work, turned downhill skiing into art. Anyone remember Killy's TV show? Only lasted about one year but it was beautiful.
The guy keeps a perfect CG where ever, when ever he skis....rule # 2 ski "between tha trees" Finally sold my "Killy Era" VR 17s in 85...shoulda kept um
The short ski revolution seems kind of overrated when you realize that steep mogul runs used to be crowded with hotdoggers who were almost all on 200+ cm skis, today mogul runs seem almost deserted after the bumps get medium sized
Avalement. Aggressive and finessive completion of each turn. The downhill ski leaves the snow at the conclusion of every turn, springs free from the snow, having been pressured and bent opposite of it's camber with full body weight, momentum and strength. Many comments about how tough it must have been to ski on "skinny" skis. By gosh, they had CAMBER. ...and Killy, amazing!
The French revolutionized the sport in the sixties with avalement. I think if you ski that natural long steep icy 1/2 pipe in the old part of Val D'Isere, you can feel the origins of avalement. Viva Jean Claude
Dynamics! (pronounced: "dee-na-meek) what a great ski! I had a pair of VR-17's for GS. They had "cracked" edges every few inches. Tracked and carved beautifully. Were you around for Rossignal Strato's-102's? Great slalom ski.The racing Dynamics and Strato's were so ahead of their time. How about those early Lange racing boots? We used to put either "jet-sticks" in them or build up the back with taped together tongue depressors so we could carve with the backs of the skis coming out of turns.
Heh right. Then LANGE-FLO came along - supposed to be comfortable, but the outside shell of the boot was so HARD and stiff that they KILLED MY FEET. I was so into skiing at that time - one of the best in High School in 1968, when Killy was like a god, but the equipment (I had) was NOT good. Boots always causing major pain and the bindings . . . . ??? I took a bad spill (at the Junior Nationals in Bozeman, MT) blew out my Left knee and had no cartilage or ACL since.
the ski raiders 1972 /snow job killy skis vertically down a glacier wall and stays on his feet at bottom amazing, wish i could find the film,please post it on youtube someone
be careful what you say... I once lay down after impressing myself down a pitch.. lit up a little god grass... and thought it's never gonna get better than this... oh, but lookie here... I am laying down at the bottom of an avalanche chute loaded with 30 inches of overnight powder... better back out of here with gentle little steps... later, when I got cancer from that godpowder... and it looked like the end, my friend, I thought I got to get back.... to that spot o out of characters so must s
jck was a director of the tour de france and I went through a file of photographs at their headquarters. him with stars, presidents, degaulle, other great skiiers... and everyone is looking at him in every picture for a long time, he was the center of the world and when the french lost to stupid england, london, tony blair in their bid for the olympics, there was a picture of killy bringing the french delegation back home on the plane, exhausted and he said, the world does not like us. sad
The key to all this is let every day on skis be an epic day..just let the snow talk to your sticks..just listen to them and feel their conversation..then all you are is "present"..then it gets good.
In a CNN interview with Killy he was asked, “When did you last ski?” I was floored when he said 1988! He said that it’s very difficult for a skier like him to just ski nicely back and forth on a slope and not ski the way he would like it to be. And so he quit. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-cSA2rV2fRAE.htmlsi=oz_B6WEwbTAU93Qg
Great to hear from all you guys. I'm back into skiing after decades of family/work/hobbies. Lots of catching up on RU-vid and EpicSki. I found a pair of K2 Killy Heats and a pair of Dynamics. As a teenager I could only dream of seeing a guy like Killy or Kidd in action; I could only dream of being at a hill with gates and a course. Some of you guys got to do both! I can visualize the epiphany of looking at a beautiful line in spring snow, years before a word had been coined for that skill.
My cousin got a pair of Dynamics in 1969. He had to order them from France because the racing model was not sold here then yet. They DID have cracked edges to let the ski flex on hard curves better. It took 2 months and cost at least twice US competition skis. He raced them successfully thru 72, usually near north Ill & Wisc. He said the newer f'glass skis flexed better & made the Dynamics into bedslats. F'glass is far lighter too.
On a you tube video by dodge ski boots an interview was done with a guy who mentioned he made a similar boot as the Dodge ski boot for Killy except it was made out of fiber glass then was covered in leather
in france I heard jean claude doing commentary in french of a race where that American did a downhill run that made you forgive anything else he did... and jean claude sounded exactly like Phil Mahre... it was somewhat disappointing. but you notice how he's skiing here through trees. if he catches an edge or tip, he's broken or dead, just amazing how on top of it he was love jean claude
He Lehmann108, I raced with Rossignol Roc 550 & ST 650 - 207 & 210cm back in college. They were provided by Rossignol for those who wanted it in our team. I have kept them as memories, my only sponsored pair of skis! It is amazing, at 5' 9", we skied slalom & GS on such long skis! Do you still ski? Cheers, L
agree.... seize the moment... i found when i was skiing the best was when i was feeling my feet and my toes and they were talking to me like, "we're taking over boss, think that's good watch this and this..."
Really can’t believe he is skiing without a helmet………..how did anybody ever get by without them ? - Timeless style , form and casual athleticism- amazing , thanks for posting - what a true hero 🙏
I agree, I've also been looking for Snow Job. When JCK did the 180 after skiing halfway up the side of a couloir, I went out the next weekend and tried to emulate my hero. No style points. Somebody out there help me, did his co-star in the movie become his girlfriend or more?
Stein Erikson...park city 1978 march..FIS spring series SL&GS watching the starting of the GS race we said "hey look at this guy"...wow it looks like he's going to win today...man can he ski !! as he went by...what thats Stein Erikson Forerunning !! 😲 😲 note: the guys to beat had just come back from Europe competing in the FIS world cup ski race series and had top 10 results in SL. the next day in the SL. my brother and i got in the top 10 🤗 watching on tv , jean claude killy . got my brother to start ski racing and i followed . 1968 Grenoble winter olympics on TV.....my brother James runs into the kitchen ....KILLY won 3 gold medals !!😲WOW!! ⛷
his co-star became his wife ,sadly she died of cancer,i believe they have children,the music score was written by a famous french composer,the film is by warner,if i ever find a copy ill burn one for you.
Trying to see what skis he's on in this vid. It's such an out-of-focus copy I can't quite see what they are. This film was from long after his stint with HEAD ....anyone?
Sounds like it is time to find a good used pair of Haute Routes..then again at my age any pair of "fat" skis will do... I refuse to part w/ my Kastle RX 210s...I'll be buried w/ them...
alphabet johnny, alec baldwin? gag me with a spoon, try francoise dorleac, merci & milehip I found a pair of skis where i could do a fair impression of jck in trees, the very first powder plus atomics I wowed them up in the chairs until I went below and they saw I was using water skiis saw killy skiing in sun valley once. and my brother sez to me, now we know what real skiing is and who is really good.
