Buddy Werner

Wallace "Buddy" Werner ( born February 26, 1936 in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, † April 12, 1964 in Samedan, Switzerland ) was an American alpine skier. He is with his success in the 1950s and 1960s as one of the first world-class skiers of his country.

Werner was one of three siblings who brought it to top results in Alpine skiing. He was a member as well as his sister Gladys and his brother Loris from 1954 to the U.S. Ski Team.

In 1959, he was the first American to have won the prestigious Hahnenkamm downhill in Kitzbuehel. In the same year, and a second time in 1962, he won the Silver Belt in Sugar Bowl. 1956, 1960 and 1964, he participated in the Winter Olympics, but remained without a medal. In the 1958 World Ski Championships in Bad Gastein, he was fourth in the slalom and fifth in the giant slalom. He repeated this success four years later with a fifth place in the giant slalom at the World Championships in Chamonix. In 1963 he won downhill, slalom and combination of Harriman Cup at Sun Valley, after he had two years earlier won out at the exit. From 1957 to 1963 he was a total of seven times U.S. champion in all disciplines.

After the racing season was 1963/64, ended with the U.S. Championships in Alaska, Werner traveled back to Europe to participate in the Swiss Alps in a ski film by Willy Bogner. During filming, he came to the Trai - fluorine - pistes near Samedan in an avalanche killed. With him died the German alpine skier Barbara Henneberger.

In memory of him in his hometown of Steamboat Springs Storm Mountain was renamed Mount Werner in the ski resort.