Mitchell Toy on how a bet between rich Englishmen started a Winter Olympics tradition
A WAGER between a Swiss hotelier and a bunch of rich Englishmen started a handful of weird winter amusements which later became winter Olympic sports, Mitchell Toy writes.
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SWISS hotelier Caspar Badrutt had a problem with his business at mountainous St Moritz in the autumn of 1864.
The lofty retreat was adored by British guests throughout the spring and summer, popular for mountain climbing, hiking and boozy frolicking.
But when the harsh winter closed in and the whole area was encased by snow and ice, the guests left.
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It was so bad that for two thirds of the year, Caspar had almost no guests at all at his Kulm Hotel.
But he was no stranger to selling a gimmick.
The Swiss town, with Badrutt’s help, had become a popular destination for its mineral springs and wealthy guests would rush to drink mineral tonics that promised to encourage good health.
But even that couldn’t get them to stay when the mercury dropped.
It was time to spin something new.
So Badrutt approached a small group of English aristocrats as they prepared to leave his hotel at the end of the 1864 summer and enticed them into a bet.
If they stayed during winter and found it dissatisfying, he would cover their accommodation costs.
But if they enjoyed it, they had to return home and talk it up among their rich friends for the rest of the year.
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Bored and with a pound or two to spare, the Englishmen agreed. But they weren’t aware that the activities, amusements and adventurous sports that Badrutt would develop, would become the basis for the first ever Winter Olympics.
One of the first sports was curling, a curious pastime that was already established in Scotland and dated back to the 1500s.
It involved skidding smooth stones over the surface of a frozen pond to see who could get closest to a target, while each team uses brooms to roughen the ice and alter the stone’s course.
That was all very well, but some of the bored Englishmen were expecting something a bit more exciting. That’s where Badrutt pulled out all the stops.
As well as offering skiing and the promise of an open fire and plenty of brandy and wine at the end of the day, the hotelier made available sleds for guests to dash through the St Moritz streets in a precursor to modern bobsled races.
Over a few seasons guests took to perfecting designs for sleds, forming winter teams and hurling themselves down the winding streets of St Moritz.
Unsurprisingly it led to local pedestrians getting smashed in the legs by wayward sleds, so Badrutt had a special half-pipe course made to contain the sleds — the first ever bobsled run.
By 1884 the sports had become so popular a second run was built in St Moritz to contain the large, steerable sleds and formal racing began.
Guests tried smaller toboggans in various positions (head first or feet first), founding modern luge racing.
Unlike modern runs, which are refrigerated, the St Moritz runs relied on the weather to stay cold.
An official club for the sports formed in 1897 and they continued to boom in popularity despite their danger and a number of severe injuries and even fatalities, including the death of Dutchman Jules van Eylandt on a practice run in St Moritz in 1907.
By 1923, bobsled and skeleton had an international federation and by 1924 bobsled and skeleton were events in the first ever Winter Olympics, held in Chamonix, France.
Four years later St Moritz itself hosted the Games, including many of the sports the town had popularised.
The Games also included the “Military Patrol” event, which involved long-distance cross-country skiing combined with target shooting and was a precursor to the modern biathlon event.
In the St Moritz Games the sport of “Skijoring” featured as a demonstration event and involved skiers being pulled along the surface of a frozen lake by horses. It was never to be repeated in future Olympics.
Norway took out the 1928 Games with 15 medals including six gold; the US came a distant second with six medals including two gold.
Caspar Badrutt didn’t live long enough to see the meteoric success of the sports he inadvertently helped create in the 1860s — he died in 1904.
But he left behind the fruits of his cunning marketing for winter holidaying including the newer Badrutt Palace Hotel in St Moritz.
The Cresta Run for skeleton sleds built in 1884 in St Moritz is still in operation, and is one of the only runs in the world that does not rely on refrigeration to operate.
The bobsled event has featured in every Winter Olympics with the exception of Squaw Valley, California in 1960 when organisers decided not to build a track to cut costs.