Jean Vuarnet

Jean Vuarnet

1960s photo of Vuarnet
Personal information
Born	(1933-01-18)18 January 1933 Le Bardo, Tunisia
Died	1 January 2017(2017-01-01) (aged 83) Sallanches, Haute-Savoie, France
Occupation	Alpine skier ♂
Spouses	Edith Bonlieu ​ ​ (m. 1958; died 1995)​ Christiane Veillon ​ ​ (m. 1999; died 2012)​
Children	4
Olympics
Teams	1 – (1960)
Medals	1 (1 gold)
World Championships
Teams	2 – (1958, 1960) (includes Olympics)
Medals	2 (1 gold)
Medal record Men's alpine skiing Representing  France Olympic Games 1960 Squaw Valley Downhill World Championships 1960 Squaw Valley Downhill 1958 Bad Gastein Downhill

Jean Vuarnet (18 January 1933 – 1 January 2017) was an alpine ski racer from France. An Olympic gold medalist, he is known for inventing the "Tuck" skiing position.

Jean Raoul Célina André Vuarnet was born in Le Bardo, Tunisia, on 18 January 1933. His father Victor Vuarnet had a medical practice there. The next year, his family moved to Morzine, France, where he grew up.^[1][2] He was introduced to skiing as a young child, childhood friends with future director Roger Vadim.^[2] His parents divorced in 1943, after which he was sent to boarding schools in the cities of Paris and Lyon.^[2]

He attended law school at the University of Grenoble (due in part to Grenoble's location being fit for skiing), enrolling in 1952.^[1][2] During this period he skied competitively and was romantically involved with Christiane Veillon, a French Canadian woman. Veillon became pregnant, and mailed him a letter announcing this, but letter was intercepted by Vuarnet's father, who did not tell his son. As a result she returned to Montreal on her own.^[2]

As Vuarnet believed himself to not be a natural skier, he instead focused on studying technique of successful skiers.^[2] He trained under French skier and physical education instructor Georges Joubert [fr], and won several races (downhill, slalom, and combined) in the 1952 French University Games. He and Joubert co-authored a book on ski techniques in 1956, Ski ABC: Technique Moderne.^[2]

The high point of Vuarnet's racing career came at age 27 at the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, where he won the gold medal in the downhill.^[3] Previously, he had won bronze in the same event at the World Championships in 1958 at Bad Gastein.^[4] From 1957 to 1959, Vuarnet achieved seven titles as a French skiing champion: twice in the downhill (1958, 1959), slalom (1957, 1958) and alpine combined, and in the giant slalom (1957).^[2] He had placed third in the slalom and the alpine combined in the "Kandahar" at Sestriere in 1956. He was not selected for the Olympic team in 1956.

He was a skiing innovator.^[1] He honed his revolutionary aerodynamic "egg position" (French: "dite de l'œuf") now known as The Tuck^[5] - a lower stance in which he squatted down with knees bent, arms outstretched and fists clasped together, in a bid to increase his speed. He also was the first to race on metal skis,^[6] on which he won the downhill at the 1960 Winter Olympics. The tenth racer on the course, he won by a full half-second.^[7]

After retiring from active competition, Vuarnet became head of the Italian alpine ski team from 1968 to 1972, and vice-president of the French skiing association, a role in which he served from 1972 to 1974.^[8]

In the early 1960s, Vuarnet was asked by his hometown of Morzine to help develop the skiing area around the town. He did so by creating the purpose-build resort of Avoriaz, together with a group of young architects. Around Avoriaz he developed a new area for alpine skiing, later linked to other areas in France and Switzerland known as The Portes du Soleil.^[5] He was appointed the director of tourism in Morzine.^[2]

Vuarnet also gave his name to the Vuarnet sunglasses brand in 1961, now owned by a U.K. private equity group, Neo Investment Partners.^[1][9][2]

In 1958, he married Edith Bonlieu, a three-time French women's ski champion and sister of François Bonlieu.^[10] They had three sons, Alain, Pierre, and Patrick, born in 1962, 1963 and 1969, respectively.^[8][2] Their marriage grew strained as his success increased, however, and Edith joined the notorious Order of the Solar Temple group.^[2] Edith and their youngest son Patrick were among the members of the Solar Temple who committed mass suicide in 1995.^[11] Following their deaths, Vuarnet wrote a book about the case, Ils ont tué ma femme et mon fils, lit. 'They killed my wife and son', telling of her behavior prior to the deaths.^[12][13] The Vuarnet family dispute that it was a mass suicide, proposing instead that they were murdered by outside forces.^[13]

He married his second wife Christiane Veillion, his past lover, in 1999; he met their daughter Catherine.^[2][8] Christiane died of a heart attack in 2012.^[8] After a stroke, Vuarnet died at age 83 in 2017 at Sallanches, Haute-Savoie.^[14] On the 50th anniversary of his gold medal win, a glass statue of Vuarnet was unveiled in his home town of Morzine.^[1]

• Joubert, Georges; —— (1956). Ski ABC: Technique Moderne (in French). Editions Bressanes. OCLC 7713816. Translated into English by John Ceely in 1957
• —— (1961). Notre victoire olympique (in French). Paris: Arthaud. OCLC 21279520.
• —— (1996). Lettre à ceux qui ont tué ma femme et mon fils (in French). Paris: Fixot. ISBN 2-221-08301-6. OCLC 409505342.

• Jean Vuarnet at FIS (alpine)
• Jean Vuarnet at Olympics.com
• Jean Vuarnet at Olympedia
• Jean Vuarnet – Vuarnet.com biography
• Jean Vuarnet - La méthode de l'oeuf (1961) on YouTube (in French)