Sports d’Hiver / Les Concours de Skis á Chamonix

Title

Sports d’Hiver / Les Concours de Skis á Chamonix

Description

Representation of a ski race in Chamonix-Mont-Blanc (Chamonix) in France, near the border to Swizerland.

ca. 1908

Artist

Laureys

Historical Description

The Norwegian landscape of Telemark is generally considered to be the region of origin of skiing as a sporting activity.Less well known is that as early as the 17th century there were reports of peasants in Carniola completing daring descents and even a kind of slalom on skis, also known as "Carniolan peasant skiing". In order to make the training more efficient, they had to stop quickly after jumps, thus shortening the ascent time. Therefore, they developed the first directional changes or stop turns. The increasing popularity of skiing in Norway led to a real skiing boom in Central Europe in the second half of the 1890s. In 1883, skis based on the Norwegian model were used by Chief Forester Arthur Ulrichs to determine storm damage in the forests around Braunlage. Furthermore, as early as 1885, the forester Maximilian Lizius in Jachenau was one of the first in Germany to use skis on his hunting trips. Norwegian skis were imported and ski clubs were founded: in Germany in 1891 in Todtnau, in Switzerland in 1893 in Glarus and around 1870 skiing came from Norway to the Alpine regions of Austria.