Henri Oreiller

Henri Oreiller (5 December 1925 – 7 October 1962) was an alpine ski racer and Olympic gold medalist from France. He won two gold medals and a bronze at the 1948 Winter Olympics, becoming the most successful athlete those Games in St. Moritz, Switzerland.

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Born in Paris, the son of Léon Oreiller, of Italian origin, and Marguerite Favre, from Savoie. His parents lived in Paris and frequented Val d'Isère for holidays. Oreiller was a member of Section Eclairuers Skieurs, a specialist skiing section of the French Resistance during World War II. After the liberation of Paris he fought in the Alps in an elite winter combat unit of the French Army.

Nicknamed the "Parisian of Val d'Isère" or the "madman of downhill", he was the first Olympic downhill champion in 1948 at St. Moritz, with a record margin of four seconds over the runner-up. He also took the gold medal in the combined event, and the bronze medal in the special slalom. He missed one of his medal ceremonies because he was playing accordion in a local bar, and received his medal a week later.

He competed in the 1950 World Championships at Aspen and finished fourth in the new event, the giant slalom. At the 1952 Winter Olympics in Oslo, Oreiller was 14th in the downhill and 16th in the giant slalom.

Obsessed with speed, Oreiller retired from ski racing in 1952 at age 26 to take up motor racing. Ten years later, he had a racing car accident which took his life on 7 October 1962. A tire blowout at 100 mph (160 km/h) caused his Ferrari to flip at the Linas-Montlhéry autodrome and he later died at Hôpital Cochin in Paris. The Ferrari 250 GTO, in which he lost his life, sold at auction for a world record $38.1million (£22.85 million), in August 2014. At his shrine at Val d'Isère, where he rests next to his wife, testimonies from around the world bear witness to his abilities.