The Olympics: Death on the Slopes

It is a matter of record that on Dec. 22, 1963, 14 in. of snow fell on Memphis, Tenn. It is also a matter of record that less than 12 in. of snow fell on Innsbruck, Austria, during the whole of December. The point, of course, is that Innsbruck is a ski resort in the Tyrolean Alps—and the site, this week, of the ninth Winter Olympics.

Imported Snow. Ski resorts have learned to cope with such whims of nature. Off to the upper Alps trooped 3,000 Austrian soldiers, with orders to bring back snow or else. They brought back tons of the stuff—in trucks, in earth movers, in wicker baskets slung on their backs. Some 40,000 cubic meters were dumped on the ski courses; another 20,000 cubic meters were set aside for "emergency withdrawals." Six huge snowmaking machines, imported from the U.S., worked night and day, spraying ice crystals on the bobsled and sled runs. Finally, last week, Austria's own Toni Sailer, who won all three Alpine skiing events at the 1956 Olympics, took a trial run down the men's down hill, pronounced it "fantastic—like out of a test tube"—and all of Innsbruck heaved a mighty sigh of relief.

So far, so good. But the sun still shone brightly, temperatures climbed into the upper 30s and each day more of the imported snow melted away. To protect what little was left, Austrian officials refused to allow Alpine skiers to train on the Olympic slopes. "They can have all the practice they want," said one, "but not on the official courses."

At Half-Mast. Handicapped all winter by a lack of snow in Europe (most pre-Olympic downhill races had to be canceled), the athletes protested bitterly. The casualty lists mounted alarmingly as they struggled to sharpen their skills. Most of the favorites escaped unscathed. Oregon's Jean Saubert, fully recovered from a touch of the flu, flashed the form that already has won four races this winter. But each day brought new reports of bruises, cuts, twisted muscles and broken bones. And there was worse: trying to negotiate a tricky turn on the ice-coated luge (sled) run, Britain's Kazimierz Skrzypecki, 50, lost control of his flimsy craft and crashed. Rushed to a hospital with a ruptured aorta and fractures of the skull, arm and pelvis, Skrzypecki died 27 hours later—the first fatality in the history of the Winter Olympics. Then, to everyone's horror, there was a second death. Practicing for the men's downhill race, Australian Skier Ross Milne, 19, missed a turn on the icy slopes and slammed sickeningly into a tree at 50 m.p.h. He never regained consciousness.

At Innsbruck, the gaily colored Olympic flags were lowered to half-mast.