Garmisch-Partenkirchen 1936
As timekeeping was still a relatively simple business, especially in winter sports, Alpine skiing only required two synchronized OMEGA stopwatches. And so it was that winners’ times were not measured with telephone or radio cords between the start and finish lines, but rather with timekeepers at either end of the course.
Poster of the Olympic Games in Germany with the athlete's right arm raised in what was then the Olympic greeting.
The Turkish skiing team (alpine and Nordic) are in good spirits as they make their way to the start.
Starting gates were not yet used when women's alpine skiing made its Olympic debut in Garmisch-Partenkirchen; the start times were noted on a piece of paper.
Germany's Hadi Pfeifer finished fifth in the downhill/slalom combined.
ANECDOTE
Resat Erces' Olympic Records
The Olympic debut of Alpine skiing was rather ill-fated. The International Ski Federation (FIS) and the IOC could not agree on who should be allowed to participate – a problem which refused to go away for a very long time. Ski instructors were not allowed to compete in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, causing Austria and Switzerland to pull out of the men’s competitions. Meanwhile, Turkey participated in the Olympic Winter Games for the very first time, entering no less than six skiers. The downhill event was won in a time of 4:47.4 by Olympic ski-jumping champion Birger Ruud, who worked in a sports shop in Garmisch at the time. However, the legendary Norwegian was not awarded a gold medal because only two sets of medals were available for the Alpine skiing events (one for men and one for women in the downhill/ slalom combined). Resat Erces was much more respectful of the Kreuzeck downhill course, taking 22 minutes 44.4 seconds to complete the 3.8 km distance, 8 minutes 15.2 seconds longer than his fellow Turk, Mah mut Sevket, who finished second last.
Three days after his downhill adventure, Erces completed the first leg for the Turkish 4 x 10 km relay, which took him 1 hour 14 minutes 59 seconds. Norway’s Oddbjörn Hagen had handed over to his colleague 33 minutes 32 seconds earlier. This gap also went into the Olympic record books. To make matters worse, Turkey did not even complete the race, since their fourth man, Sevket, who had also made a name for himself in the downhill, had to give up because of injury. None of the four Turks who entered the Alpine combined could be placed because they all dropped out of the slalom.
Twelve years later, at the next Olympic gathering in St. Moritz, the Turkish skiing team performed considerably better and achieved four placings.
TECHNOLOGY
Timekeeping was still a relatively simple business, especially in winter sports. In Alpine skiing it involved two synchronised stopwatches, with one timekeeper at the start, where there were no starting gates in those days, and the other at the finishing line, where there was still no finishing ribbon. There was no telephone or radio connection between the start and finish. The exact start time and start number of each skier was noted on a slip of paper and the same procedure took place at the finishing line. After a few skiers had descended, the paper with the start times was put in the trouser pocket of the next skier in the hope that he would make it to the end of the course and take it to the race office. There the difference between the two times was calculated and published to the nearest 1/10th of a second. It therefore took a while before the athletes and spectators were informed of the results. It was not until 1948 that the timing process was triggered automatically by the starting gate, when the clock started as soon as the gate was opened to an angle of 30 degrees.
