Saudan: Ski-celebrity marketing

During the 60s, Alpine skiing was big news in Europe, the heroes were Killy and Schranz and there was hardly any room left for other exploits on skis. 

Because he happened to like skiing steep slopes and was obviously good at it, Sylvain Saudan was able to create a brand-new “niche” activity, where he had little to no competition, and was quite smart in leveraging his successes through clever personal marketing, by becoming “The skier of the impossible.” 

Quite a dangerous endeavor in which names like Anselme Baud, Patrick Vallençant, Serge Cachat or Jean-Marc Boivin soon followed him, but the Swiss-born skier had already defined the category as his own. 

A long-time resident of Les Houches, France, right in the Chamonix valley, Saudan elegantly saluted his adoptive country by dying on Bastille Day, securely laying in his own bed, after having successfully dodged lurking dangers and bad luck his entire lifetime. He was 87 years old.