Serge Lang (skiing)

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Serge Lang (June 6, 1920–November 21, 1999) was a French journalist, alpine skier, and the founder of the alpine skiing World Cup.

Born in Alsace in eastern France, Lang learned to ski before the age of 7 and competed in ski races during his youth. During World War II, he was a journalist, and after the war he covered a variety of sporting events, especially alpine skiing and cycling. In the mid 1960s, he had the idea for a season-long series of ski races with a points system to determine a champion. He named it the "World Cup" after the football (soccer) world championships held in England in 1966, which were the first to be called the World Cup. That same summer, the ski World Championships were held in August for the first time in Portillo, Chile, during the Southern Hemisphere winter. This provided an opportunity for all the major figures in ski racing to come together and hash out the details of the proposed competition. The International Ski Federation (FIS) agreed to officially support the event, and the first season began at the start of 1967.

The alpine skiing World Cup became a huge success with ski racing fans, and Lang continued to guide its growth over the following decades, serving as president of the International Ski Federation's Alpine World Cup committee from 1973 to 1986. He also continued working as a sports journalist for Blick, La Suisse, 24 heures, and L'Équipe, and founded the Association of International Ski Journalists in 1973. Lang wrote several books about ski racing and the World Cup, including the annual Ski World Cup Guide (popularly known as the "Biorama") with World Cup statistics and racer biographies, and the retrospective 21 Years of World Cup Ski Racing published in 1986. Lang lived his later years in Riehen, Switzerland, and died of a heart attack in Sternenberg, France while writing his memoirs in 1999. His son, Patrick Lang, is also a journalist covering alpine ski racing.

[edit] Books by Serge Lang

• Lange, Serge (1986). 21 Years of World Cup Ski Racing. Johnson Books / James Wotton. ISBN 1-55566-009-6.  Also available under ISBN 0-246-13116-0.

[edit] References

• Lang, Patrick. World Cup Founder Serge Lang Dies: A Man of Passion. Retrieved on February 23, 2007.
• Lang, Serge. The Creation of the World Cup. Retrieved on February 23, 2007.
• Downes, Steven. "Obituary: Serge Lang", The Independent (London), 1999-11-25. Retrieved on February 23, 2007.