Killy's Flying Start

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32017, 18 June 1969, Page 12

Killy's Flying Start

Here is Killy’s start step by step: 1. Just before count-down 5 ... 4 ... 3 starts, KiUy gets set with his feet about a yard away from the stEU*ting bar, body slung back, poles raised, ready to plunge into the snow.

J. G. Killy, the Olympic ski champion, won many of his key races by split seconds—and his margin of victory was decided in the starting gate. He won the 1.8-mile downhill race at Grenoble by only 8«100ths of a second from G. Perillat, whose start was markedly slower.

Killy developed a technique that enabled him to spurt from the starting gate with great speed. In a ski race the timing of a racer’s run begins automatically by electrical circuit when the racer breaks through the starting bar.

All the racer has to do is not start before the last three seconds of the countdown, and hot more than three seconds after the zero of the count-down.

Thus there is a theoretical elapsed period of six seconds in which a racer can start. The story of Killy’s success goes back to the end of the unsuccessful French winter of 1966. The French team had been badly beaten in almost all the major downhills. Returning home at the end of the season, it was agreed that something was wrong with what they were doing. New solutions had to be worked out. As a result, the French coach, Bonnet, and his team

tested new downhill positions in a wind tunnel and developed new clothing to cut down air resistance. Finally the problem of starting speed was worked on.

Killy was a very keen student as he had the misfortune to crash not far out of the starting gate in the downhill at the 1964 Olympics at Innsbruck. The technique developed relied on the strength in the racer’s arms. The greater the power in the arms, the higher the speed out of the starting gate. The racer gets his body in a position where his arms can give him the greatest forward propulsion. When the Anal count-down begins, at five, for example, the racer slides backwards with his skis two or three feet.

2. As count approaches zero or 90, Killy 3. springs up, driving his poles into the snow with a catapulting effect, his body building speed before the clock has started to run.

Killy’s pole push is so powerful that it has launched him into the air. In a split second his feet strike the bar, starting the clock.

When the starter says "go,” the racer applies all the power in his arms to launch himself towards the timing bar. Thus, instead of starting with a speed of virtually zero, the racer crosses the bar and starts the clocks with an initial speed of

In the old, conventional start, the racer waits through count-down with poles placed in the snow in front of the starting bar, ready to push off. His feet

eight to 10 miles-an-hour. Many skiers seem to begin slowly and smoothly to acquire rhythm through the course but Killy has the natural brilliance to go with a flying start. Perhaps this form of starting will be seen on New Zealand ski slopes this season?

are just a little behind the bar, and if his pole push is not exceptionally strong, when he comes through the starting bar with his knees, his speed will only be two or three miles-an-hour.