GENEVA - Swiss alpine skiing legend Karl Molitor has died at the age of 94, his family announced on Wednesday.
Swiss alpine skiing legend Karl Molitor has died at the age of 94, his family announces
Molitor, from the ski resort of Wengen in Switzerland's rugged Bernese Oberland region, won multiple victories in the iconic Lauberhorn downhill.
His first win on the Lauberhorn, at 4.48 kilometres the longest downhill on the alpine skiing calendar, was in 1939, when he was 20.
The same year, he won the bronze medal at the world championships in Zakopane in Poland, on the eve of World War II.
While Switzerland was neutral during the war, the conflict put international sport on hold for six years.
In 1948, at the Winter Olympics in the Swiss resort of St. Moritz, Molitor won silver in the combined and bronze in the downhill.
After that crowning moment of his career, he went on to manage the Lauberhorn race for 35 years.