Gordon Wren

L. Gordon " Gordy " Wren ( born January 5, 1919 in Steamboat Springs, † November 25, 1999 ) was an American ski jumpers, cross-country skiing, Nordic combined and Alpine ski racer. He qualified for the Olympic Winter Games 1948 in the Nordic and Alpine disciplines and achieved fifth place in the special jumping. In 1950 he was the first American who skipped the 300 -foot mark.

Career

Gordon Wren is the only athlete from the USA, who qualified for four different disciplines at the Olympic Games. At the Olympic Winter Games in 1948 in St. Moritz, he was qualified in addition to the special jumping for cross-country skiing, nordic combined, and the alpine competitions. However, his participation in the downhill and slalom at he withdrew before the competition in order to fully focus on the Nordic skiing events. In special jumping he finished fifth on the normal hill. In the Nordic combined, he could not reach the front seats, but managed 68.5 meters in the second round in second place in the combination of jumping and the largest width of the competition.

1950 Wren was in Steamboat Springs American Champion in Nordic Combined. In the same year he scored there on the Howelsen Hill ski jump with a distance of 301 feet ( 91.7 meters) the first jump by an American about the 300 -foot mark. One of his greatest successes in alpine skiing, he had already made eight years earlier, when he won the 1942 slalom of the Harriman Cup at Sun Valley. During the Second World War he was a member of four years of 10th Mountain Division of the U.S. Army.

Starting in 1950, Wren was a manager of several ski areas, first in Steamboat Springs, later in Loveland and Jackson Hole. In Reno, he headed one of the largest training programs for young skiers, for which he was awarded the 1959 Russell Wilder Memorial Award of the United States Ski Association. 1958 Wren was inducted into the National Ski Hall of Fame in 1972 in the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame and in 1979 into the Colorado Ski Hall of Fame. He died at the age of 80 years to cancer.