Vreni SCHNEIDER

The Olympic Winter Games in Calgary in 1988 was a major success for two young ski racers with widely disparaging personalities. Vreni Schneider and Alberto Tomba won two gold medals each, in slalom and giant slalom. The son of a very wealthy father, Alberto Tomba called himself the new Messiah of ski racing and had been promised a new Ferrari from his father if he won. Vreni Schneider's background could not have been more diverse. She came from the small Swiss mountain village of Elm, where her father was a shoemaker. When Vreni Schneider was 13 years old, she had to adjust to the death of her mother. She opted to leave school to take care of the household, reflected in her favourite pastime of knitting, besides skiing obviously.

A fascinating aspect of elite sports is that the personality shows so little when it comes to the consideration of the results alone. On the race course La Bomba and Vreni Schneider were however quite similar, they combined technique with aggressiveness and strength. Looking at the results Vreni Schneider was actually more successful and she has been called the female equivalent of Ingemar Stenmark. No other ski racers have been as successful in giant slalom and slalom as these two.

At the time of the Winter Olympics in Calgary Vreni Schneider was 23 years old and not yet fully established at the top. A few days before the start, she was sacked from the Swiss super-g team, so she made up her mind to either do something great or quit. Two Olympic gold medals later the choice was made. Her impressive second slalom run was one of the most forceful ever seen in the ladies FIS World Cup circus.

The following winter she displayed her dominance over all competitors in the overall cup and won 14 races. With this she surpassed Ingemar Stenmark's dream season ten years previously.

A few interesting facts: During the years when Vreni Schneider made her breakthrough, many of the skiers had problems combining slalom and giant slalom. The new flex poles used in slalom caused problems for many skiers and the technique became increasingly aggressive.

Vreni Schneider competed on elite level for ten years, until she was 30. During this decade, she won the overall FIS World Cup 3 times and was on the top of the podium 55 times. She also won three Olympic gold medals and three gold medals in the World Championships.

Her main rival was German Katja Seizinger, another excellent ski racer. Until Renate Götschl caught up with her this spring, Katja Seizinger was the third most successful female ski racer after Annemarie Moser Pröll and Vreni Schneider. There are many who claim that Swedish Pernilla Wiberg would have been even more successful had she not had to race against Vreni Schneider and Katja Seizinger.

The duels were highly appreciated by the spectators in the Alps. Swiss fans with flags and cowbells followed Vreni Schneider on her tours all over Europe.

Her popularity was not only due to her successes in racing, but also down to her humble and timid nature. Despite being the best ski racer in the world, she still took the time to talk to the girls at the bottom of the start list and she would even know the name of the girl with bib number 65, according to Anja Pärson. Many elite ski racers, such as Anja Pärson, name Vreni as their main role model.

By taking the Olympic slalom gold in Lillehammer in 1994 and winning the FIS World Cup that same winter as well as the following year, Vreni Schneider made a fitting farewell to the world of competitive skiing to retire to a quiet life in her home village Elm, where she opened a modest ski and snowboard school and started a family.
Gabriel Arthur