Slovenia’s male skiers are no longer at the top of the world’s rankings, but the country has an enduring passion for the sport. Each year, thousands of spectators come to watch the event that put a once-anonymous village in the Upper Sava Valley on the international map. Foto: Aleš Fevžer
Slovenia’s male skiers are no longer at the top of the world’s rankings, but the country has an enduring passion for the sport. Each year, thousands of spectators come to watch the event that put a once-anonymous village in the Upper Sava Valley on the international map. Foto: Aleš Fevžer

Kranjska Gora has long been a popular resort in Slovenia. But it was a sporting event that made the village famous across Europe.

Today, the Vitranc Cup brings the world’s top skiers to Kranjska Gora. A part of the prestigious World Cup circuit, the annual slalom and giant slalom races are seen by millions around the world and have made the little village famous well beyond Slovenia’s borders.

In the years after World War II, however, few outside of the country had ever heard of Kranjska Gora. It was then that a group of locals decided to organize annual ski races on the surrounding slopes. The event turned out to be a success and it soon began to attract foreign competitors.

In the early 1960s, the International Ski Federation decided to award Kranjska Gora a place on the world’s most prestigious competitive skiing circuit – an event ultimately became the FIS World Cup. In early March of 1961, men’s slalom and a giant slalom races were organized in Kranjska Gora. Except for a few weather-related cancelations, the Vitranc Cup – named after a local mountain -- has been held every year since.

The first giant slalom in Kranjska Gora was won by Austrian skier Josef “Pepi” Stiegler, who also took first place in the following year’s slalom race. Even though he already had a silver medal from the 1960 Squaw Valley Winter Olympics, his Kranjska Gora victories were an indication of even greater success to come: At the 1964 Innsbruck games, he capped his career with a gold medal in slalom, along with a bronze in giant slalom. Stiegler then set up a ski school in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He now runs a chain of ski shops in that upscale resort town; his daughter Resi Stiegler is a member of the U.S. Ski Team.

Another Austrian, Ernst Flach, won the first slalom of the Vitranc Cup. For him, the victory represented a comeback in the wake of a severe injury. After several more victories, he settled in the resort town of St. Anton, Austria, where he now runs a hotel. His son Martin is also a competitive skier, despite having had one of his legs amputated beneath the knee. He competes with other disabled skiers and has been named Austria’s Disabled Athlete of the Year.

For more than half a century, Kranjska Gora has seen spectacular performances by the world’s top skiers. In 1975, Spain’s Francisco Fernández Ochoa became the first skier to win both the Vitranc slalom and the giant slalom in the same year. The Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark was also a double winner four years later.

To the delight of the local audience, a Slovenian skier named Bojan Križaj repeated the feat the following season. Home-grown skiers have always taken part in the Vitranc Cup (Peter Lakota finished sixth as early as in 1968), but they saw their greatest success in the 1980s and ‘90s. Bojan Križaj, Rok Petrovič, and Jure Košir all won races in Kranjska Gora, thrilling huge crowds who came from all over Slovenia to cheer them on.

Slovenia’s male skiers are no longer at the top of the world’s rankings, but the country has an enduring passion for the sport. Each year, thousands of spectators come to watch the event that put a once-anonymous village in the Upper Sava Valley on the international map.