Jean-Claude Killy Disciplines Downhill, Giant Slalom,
Slalom, Combined
Date of birth August 30, 1943 (age 67)
Place of birth Saint-Cloud,
Hauts-de-Seine, France
Height 5 ft 10 in (1.78 m)
World Cup debut January 1967 (age 23)
inaugural season
Retired April 1968
Olympics
Teams 2 - (1964, 1968)
Medals 3 (3 gold)
World Championships
Teams 4 - (1962, '64, '66, '68)
Medals 6 (6 gold)
World Cup
Seasons 2 - (1967-1968)
Wins 18 - (6 DH, 7 GS 5 SL)
Podiums 24 - (8 DH, 9 GS, 7 SL)
Overall titles 2 - (1967, 1968)
Discipline titles 4 - (1 DH, 2 GS, 1 SL)
Medal record[hide]
Men's alpine skiing
Competitor for France
Olympic Games
Gold 1968 Grenoble Giant slalom
Gold 1968 Grenoble Slalom
Gold 1968 Grenoble Downhill
World Championships
Gold 1966 Portillo Downhill
Gold 1966 Portillo Combined
Gold 1968 Grenoble Combined
Jean-Claude Killy (born August 30, 1943, in Saint-Cloud, Hauts-de-Seine, France) is a former champion alpine ski racer, who dominated the sport in the late 1960s. He was a triple Olympic champion, winning all three events at the 1968 Winter Olympics and becoming the most successful athlete there. He also won the first two World Cup titles (1967 & 1968).
Killy was born in Saint-Cloud, a suburb of Paris, during the Nazi occupation of World War II, but was brought up in Val-d'Isère in the Alps, where his family had relocated in 1945 following the war. His father, Robert, was a former fighter pilot for the Free French, and opened a ski shop in the Savoie village, and would later operate a hotel. In 1950, his mother Madeline abandoned the family for another man, leaving Robert to raise Jean-Claude, age 7, his older sister (France), and their infant brother (Mic). Jean-Claude was sent to boarding school in Chambéry, 80 miles (130 km) down the valley, but he despised being shut up in a classroom.
[edit] Early career
Killy turned his attention to skiing rather than school. His father allowed him to drop out at age 15, and he made the French national junior team a year later. As a young racer, Killy was fast, but did not usually complete his races, and the early 1960s were less than successful.
In December 1961, Killy won his first international race, a giant slalom. It was especially sweet because the event took place in his home village of Val-d'Isere and because he had started 39th, a position that should have been a severe disadvantage. Killy was 18.
The French coach picked Killy for the giant slalom in the 1962 World Championships in Chamonix, France, 50 miles (80 km) away in the shadow of Mont Blanc. It would be, he felt, a great French debut for this teenager. But Killy, unaware of his selection, was still attempting to qualify for the downhill event in northeastern Italy. In Cortina, only three weeks before the worlds were to begin, Killy skied in a race in his typical hell-bent, devil-may-care style. About two hundred yards (180 m) from the finish, Killy hit a stretch of ice in a compression and went down, rose immediately, then crossed the finish on just one ski—and the fastest time. Unfortunately, his other leg was broken, and he watched the world championships on crutches.
Two years later, at age 20, Killy was entered in all three of the men's events at the 1964 Olympics, because his coach wanted to prepare him for 1968. Unfortunately, Killy was plagued by recurrences of amoebic dysentery and hepatitis, ailments that he had contracted in 1962 during a summer of compulsory service with the French army in Algeria. His form was definitely off, and he fell a few yards after the start of the downhill, lost a binding in the slalom, and finished fifth in the giant slalom, in which he had been the heavy favorite.
Although the first half of the decade was a relative disappointment, the results began to come for him in, beginning in the unexpected month of August 1966. Killy won his first downhill race against an international field at the 1966 World Championships in Portillo, Chile in August, and also took gold in the combined. Killy was peaking as the first World Cup season was launched in January 1967, with the 1968 Winter Olympics