History of skiing

Table of contents
1 Ancient history of skiing
2 Modern history of skiing
3 Museums
4 See Also

Ancient history of skiing

The first hints to the existence of skis are on 4500 to 5000 year old rock drawings, e.g. at Rødøy in Norway. There are also remains of skis in bogs, e.g. the oldest ski found in Hoting, Sweden, which is about 4500 years old.

The word ski goes back to two Old Norse roots, both older than 4500 years: saa and suk.

Different types of skis have emerged at various regions at about the same time, but the original inventors of skis seem to be the people of the Sajan-Altaic mountains in Asia. This is not verified. All in all there are three different types of skis in the North of Europe and Asia:

Modern ski bindings are based on the Fennoscandian model of the 19th century. The bindings of Telemark ski and cross-country skis were developed from the Ugro-Lapp type.

Skis have different shapes that have their own functions. E.g. the length of a ski depends on its use and the terrain where it is used. The breadth of a ski depends on its length. In the 19th century the Telemark ski revolutionized alpine skiing, being the first ski with a remarkable waist making it much easier for skiers to turn. The stress of a ski makes the board more flexible to the terrain.

There are six possible roots from which skis originally might have developed:

The fur that covered the skis made it possible to walk on them nearly noiselessly, prevented them from gliding, avoided snow to stick to them and also strengthened the often thin skis.

The ski poles go back to two roots:

Modern history of skiing

In the 17th century the baron of Valvasor wrote reports on skiing activities in Slovenia.

Pioneer Sondre Norheim, from Morgedal in Telemark, has often been given the honour as the true father of skiing, inventing the equipment and techniques that led to modern skiing as
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we see it today. Actually, there are no proofs that he himslelf invented anything. Most of the inventions attributed to him were in fact known a long time before him. But he must have been a wonderful skier, and an inspiration for generations. The myth about Sondre as the father of modern skiing was largely constructed in Norway from the 1930s, and especially in connection with the Olympic Winter Games in Oslo in 1952. In 1875, the first ski club, and two years later the first ski school were founded in Kristiania (now Oslo). In 1883 the German ski pioneer Paulcke crossed the Bernese Oberland on his Norwegian skis. In the year 1888 the Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen crossed Greenland from East to West on skis. The report on his expedition, Paa ski over Grønland, aroused the interest in skiing of many people at that time. In the same year the Austrian Max Kleinoschegg had his first attempts on skis on the Ruckerlberg near Graz. The usefulness of skis for military purpose also speeded up their development and spreading. The norwegian military had skiing competitions from the 1670s, and the first known civilian race took place in Tromsø, Norway in 1843. In Austria centers of skiing activities were Mürzzuschlag and Semmering.

Ski jumping

The first skiing events where ski jumping was included were held in Tromso/, Norway in 1843. The first pure ski jumping event was held in Trysil on January 22 1862. Later, the yearly Husebybakken events in Oslo from 1879 were moved to Holmenkollen from 1892, and Holmenkollen was to become the Mecca of ski jumping.

Austrian Ski pioneers

In 1896 he published his first book on skiing technique. Zdarsky stemmed the downhill ski out, leaned inside to the pole, unweighted the inner ski and brought it parallel, he used rotation technique. He taught skiing and invented ski acrobatics.
The first slalom race was directed by Zdarsky and took place at Muckenkogel, Lilienfeld, in 1905.
At this time especially Englishmen seemed to be interested in skiing. Sir Anthony Lunn and Schneider rang in the era of alpine ski races with the Arlberg Kandahar race in 1928.

Museums

See Also