As the first medals begin to fall into the French handshake at the Beijing Winter Olympics, look back at our magazine’s first meeting with Jean-Claude Killy 60 years ago… With Retro Match, follow news through the archives of Paris Match.
When Match met Jean-Claude Killy for the first time in January 1962, the skier was only 18 but “already thinking of reigning over Val d’Isère”. “He put on his first skis at the age of three,” writes Match (No. 665), and already has a good track record: “Entered the “hopes” of the French team in 1959, he managed a season dizzying in 1960 by becoming French “junior” champion in downhill, special slalom, giant slalom and combined. He has just won the Critérium de la première neige in front of international tenors”.
Discover Retro Match, news through the archives of Match…
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His friends predict him success
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For our photographer Gérard Géry, Jean-Claude Killy poses in uniform, in training, with the family but also in the equipment shop of his father, Robert. “At the same time as he continues his training, Jean-Claude Killy learns the profession of hotelier. Like its illustrious predecessors, it wants to link its name to a station. His friends predict him success because, they say, he has the “fries” (the great form!) but not the “cigar” (the fatuity)”. Still in the shadow of Charles Bozon and Guy Périllat, Killy will have to wait until 1968 and the Winter Olympics in Grenoble to achieve his historic gold treble – giant, downhill slalom.
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