Last weekend the Stowe Derby marked 80 years since its founding. It’s a pretty unique ski race since it combines cross country and downhill skiing in one race, and on one pair of skis! This combination of skills is what the title of “Skimeister” was meant to recognize.
Dartmouth College played a huge role in developing organized skiing competitions in the United States. Dartmouth held its first winter carnival in 1911 and the events included ski jumping and what we would now call cross country skiing. In 1914 McGill University in Montreal invited Dartmouth to participate in what is considered the first intercollegiate ski meet. Again the events were cross country and jumping. By the way, Dartmouth actually won the jumping event using two Hanover high school students! The following year Dartmouth hosted the event and invited other colleges to participate.
In 1923 Dartmouth introduced the new event of slalom to the United States. Sir Arnold Lunn had organized the first slalom event in Mürren, Switzerland, in 1922. A Dartmouth grad John Carleton represented the U.S. in Cross Country at the first winter Olympics in 1924 held in Chamonix. There were no downhill skiing events at those Olympics.
In 1927 Dartmouth through its Outing Club would organize the first downhill ski event in the United States on Mount Moosilauke in New Hampshire. It was won by Dartmouth professor Charlie Proctor!
In the 1930s intercollegiate skiing had expanded to four events: cross country, jumping, downhill, and slalom. At each meet, individual results were tabulated into team scores to determine the winning team. And one individual who had the best results across all four events was named the Skimeister!
This format was also adopted by high schools in the Northeast including Vermont. Mount Mansfield Ski Club’s Howard Prestwich organized the first inter-scholastic ski meet in Vermont in 1935. In 1939 the Vermont Headmasters Club (now Vermont Principals Association) would take over that responsibility from MMSC.
The concept of a Skimeister lasted for quite a long time. I went to high school in New Hampshire from 1960-64 and by then giant slalom had replaced downhill, but to be the Skimeister you still had to compete in all four events. Specialization in skiing was beginning to take over so there were fewer athletes willing to do all four events. Cross country skiers didn’t want to waste training time on slalom and slalom skiers didn’t want to waste training time on ski jumping. But there were still a few! Our leading Skimeister was Ed Damon who coincidently was our football quarterback. Damon would go on to captain the Dartmouth ski team and in his senior year won Skimeister honors in the Dartmouth, Williams, and Middlebury winter carnival meets.
I assume the NCAA stopped recognizing Skimeisters when they dropped ski jumping in 1980. Jumping’s popularity in the U.S. had dropped and the cost of insurance and maintaining a jumping facility had gone up.
By the way, the NCAA Championships this year will be at Dartmouth from March 5-8. Nordic events will take place at Oak Hill while alpine races will be skied at the Dartmouth Skiway.
We’ve seen a re-use of the term Skimeister for events that combine cross country and alpine. Unlike the Stowe Derby, it’s in separate events. Back on January 20th Cochran’s hosted the Vermont State Ski Meister competition. Cochran’s hosted a two-run slalom, then the competitors went over to Sleepy Hollow Nordic center for a pursuit style cross country race where your start time is based on your slalom finish.
On January 26 of this year, Charles Bird Vaughan Jr. passed away. Better known as “CB,” he was an accomplished skier and successful business man founding CB Sports. He honed his skiing skills first at Vermont Academy and then at St. Lawrence University. In keeping with the theme of this week’s column, Vaughan earned several “Skimeister” awards as he competed in all four events (downhill, cross country, jump and slalom.) He became the North American Alpine Champion in 1963.
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