Alpine skier | |
Disciplines | Giant Slalom, Slalom, Downhill, Combined |
---|---|
Club | Bend Skyliners |
Born | Bend, Oregon, U.S. | July 24, 1949
Height | 5 ft 3 in (1.60 m) |
World Cup debut | March 1967 (age 17) |
Retired | February 1970 (age 20) |
Olympics | |
Teams | 1 – (1968) |
Medals | 0 |
World Championships | |
Teams | 2 – (1968, 1970) includes Olympics |
Medals | 0 |
World Cup | |
Seasons | 3 – (1968 – 70) |
Wins | 5 – (4 SL, 1 GS) |
Podiums | 12 – (10 SL, 2 GS) |
Overall titles | 0 – (4th in 1969) |
Discipline titles | 0 – (2nd in SL, 1969) |
Christina "Kiki" Cutter (born July 24, 1949) is a former World Cup alpine ski racer from the United States. She was the first American to win a World Cup event, a slalom race in Oslo, Norway, on February 25, 1968. [1] Although Cutter competed on the World Cup circuit for less than three years, her five career victories led the U.S. alpine team for eleven years, [1] surpassed by Phil Mahre in 1979.
Born in central Oregon in Bend, Cutter learned to ski and race at Mount Bachelor, known as "Bachelor Butte" until 1983. She was one of six children of Dr. Robert Cutter and Jane Cutter, who relocated to Bend from the Midwest in 1948, and Kiki was the first in the family born in Oregon. [2] Cutter was a junior racer at Mount Bachelor and gained recognition for her abilities; [3] she won the U.S. junior downhill championship in 1967 at age 17. [4]
Not originally on the World Cup or Olympic teams in 1968, Cutter, age 18, and Judy Nagel, age 16, were brought over to Europe in January, a few weeks ahead of the Olympics, to compete for berths on the U.S. Olympic team, which they both made. [5] [6] Cutter competed with the team at the Grenoble Olympics in 1968 and the World Championships in 1970. In the 1968 games, she placed higher than any American woman and was the only American woman to ski in all three events—slalom, giant slalom, and downhill. [7] Following the Olympic competition, her rise to stardom continued in Norway, with her first World Cup victory at age 18. [8] [9] Cutter finished ninth in the overall standings in 1968. With three World Cup wins the next year (giant slalom at Oberstaufen, West Germany, [10] and slalom victories at Mount St. Anne, Quebec, and Waterville Valley, New Hampshire), she finished fourth in the overall standings and second in slalom in 1969. [11] Cutter won her fifth and final World Cup race at St. Gervais, France, in 1970. [12] [13] During her brief amateur career, Cutter had five World Cup victories, twelve podiums, and 25 top-10 finishes, all in the technical events, with one victory and two podiums in giant slalom and the rest in slalom. [12] After the 1970 World Championships in mid-February, Cutter retired from international competition at age 20. [14] [15] She raced professionally on the Women's Pro Tour in North America for several years. [16]
Season | Age | Overall | Slalom | Giant Slalom | Downhill |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1968 | 18 | 9 | 5 | 9 | — |
1969 | 19 | 4 | 2 | 6 | — |
1970 | 20 | 19 | 9 | — | — |
Points were only awarded for top ten finishes (see scoring system).
Season | Date | Location | Discipline | Place |
---|---|---|---|---|
1968 | 25 Jan 1968 | St. Gervais, France | Slalom | 3rd |
24 Feb 1968 | Oslo, Norway | Giant Slalom | 3rd | |
25 Feb 1968 | Slalom | 1st | ||
16 Mar 1968 | Aspen, USA | Slalom | 3rd | |
28 Mar 1968 | Rossland, Canada | Slalom | 3rd | |
1969 | 3 Jan 1969 | Oberstaufen, West Germany | Giant Slalom | 1st |
7 Jan 1969 | Grindelwald, Switzerland | Slalom | 3rd | |
16 Jan 1969 | Schruns, Austria | Slalom | 3rd | |
16 Feb 1969 | Vysoké Tatry, Czechoslovakia | Slalom | 2nd | |
15 Mar 1969 | Mont St. Anne, Canada | Slalom | 1st | |
22 Mar 1969 | Waterville Valley, USA | Slalom | 1st | |
1970 | 22 Jan 1970 | St. Gervais, France | Slalom | 1st |
Year | Age | Slalom | Giant Slalom | Super-G | Downhill | Combined |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1968 | 18 | DQ1 | 21 | not run | 17 | not run |
From 1971 to 1973, Cutter was married to Bob Beattie, coach of the U.S. Ski Team and later skiing promoter and television commentator. [17] [18] [19]
Cutter participated in two nationally televised women's Superstars competitions, where she placed third and fourth. [1] She helped create the Kiki Cutter World Cup Ski Racing Scholarship in 1993 to help develop careers for youth ski racers. [1] Cutter appeared in Bausch & Lomb advertisements for Ray-Ban sunglasses in the late 1980s. [20]
She lives in Oregon, in her hometown of Bend, and is the founder, publisher, and president of Bend Living magazine. [2] [21]
Tina Maze is a retired Slovenian World Cup alpine ski racer.
Wallace Jerold "Buddy" Werner was an American alpine ski racer in the 1950s and early 1960s.
Lindsey Caroline Vonn is an American former World Cup alpine ski racer on the US Ski Team. She won four World Cup overall championships—one of only two female skiers to do so, along with Annemarie Moser-Pröll—with three consecutive titles in 2008, 2009, and 2010, plus another in 2012. Vonn won the gold medal in downhill at the 2010 Winter Olympics, the first one for an American woman. She also won a record eight World Cup season titles in the downhill discipline, five titles in super-G, and three consecutive titles in the combined (2010–2012). In 2016, she won her 20th World Cup crystal globe title, the overall record for men or women, surpassing Ingemar Stenmark of Sweden, who won 19 globes from 1975 to 1984. She has the second highest super ranking of all skiers, men or women.
Theodore Sharp Ligety is a retired American alpine ski racer, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, and an entrepreneur, having cofounded Shred Optics. Ligety won the combined event at the 2006 Olympics in Turin and the giant slalom race at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi. He is also a five-time World Cup champion in giant slalom. Ligety won the gold medal in the giant slalom at the 2011 World Championships. He successfully defended his world title in giant slalom in 2013 in Schladming, Austria, where he also won an unexpected gold medal in the super-G and a third gold medal in the super combined. Through October, 2015, he has 25 victories and 52 podiums in World Cup competition.
Susan Corrock Luby is a former World Cup alpine ski racer, a member of the U.S. Ski Team in the early 1970s. Talented in all three disciplines, she had 16 top ten finishes in World Cup competition: 8 in downhill, 2 in giant slalom, and 6 in slalom.
William Winston Kidd is a former World Cup alpine ski racer, a member of the U.S. Ski Team from 1962 to 1970.
The Skiing Cochrans are a family of American alpine ski racers from Richmond, Vermont, a dominant force on the U.S. Ski Team in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and again in 2000s, 2010s and 2020s.
Katharine Kreiner-Phillips is a former World Cup alpine ski racer and Olympic gold medalist from Canada. She won the giant slalom at the 1976 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria. First out of the gate on Friday the 13th, Kreiner prevented double-gold medalist Rosi Mittermaier from sweeping the women's three alpine events, as Mittermaier won the silver medal. It was Canada's only gold medal in Innsbruck.
Waterville Valley is a ski resort in Waterville Valley, New Hampshire, United States. It is located within the White Mountain National Forest. Built on Mount Tecumseh, with a summit elevation of 3,997 feet (1,218 m) above sea level, the ski trails extend to a high point on the south ridge of the mountain at 3,840 feet (1,170 m), offering a vertical drop of 2,020 feet (615 m). The ski area has 11 lifts, including two high-speed quads and the slopes primarily face east and northeast.
Tamara McKinney is a former World Cup alpine ski racer from the United States. She won four World Cup season titles, most notably the 1983 overall, the last American woman title holder for a quarter century, until Lindsey Vonn in 2008. McKinney's other three season titles were in giant slalom and slalom (1984). She was a world champion in the combined event in 1989, her final year of competition. Her half-brother Steve McKinney was a record holding speed skier.
Michaela Kirchgasser is a retired Austrian alpine ski racer. She raced in the technical events of slalom and giant slalom, and also the combined.
Šárka Strachová is a retired Czech World Cup alpine ski racer. Born in Benecko, she specializes in the slalom event. Strachová is the first alpine racer representing the Czech Republic to medal at the Winter Olympics and at the World Championships and just the second Czech alpine skier ever to medal in the Olympics.
Marilyn Cochran Brown is a former World Cup alpine ski racer from the United States.
Alena Igorevna Zavarzina is a Russian former snowboarder specializing in parallel slalom and parallel giant slalom disciplines. She is the 2011 World champion and bronze medalist from the 2014 Winter Olympics in parallel giant slalom. She won the parallel giant slalom crystal globe in 2016/17 World Cup season.
Mikaela Pauline Shiffrin is an American two-time Olympic Gold Medalist and World Cup alpine skier. She is a three-time Overall World Cup champion, a four-time world champion in slalom, and a six-time winner of the World Cup discipline title in that event. Shiffrin is the youngest slalom champion in Olympic alpine skiing history, at 18 years and 345 days.
Judy Ann Nagel is a former World Cup alpine ski racer from the United States.
Erica Adams "Rickey" Skinger is a former World Cup alpine ski racer from the United States.
Penny McCoy is a former World Cup alpine ski racer from the United States.
Ester Ledecká is a Czech snowboarder and alpine skier. At the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, Ledecká won gold medals in the super-G in alpine skiing and in the parallel giant slalom in snowboarding, becoming the first person to win two gold medals at the same Winter Olympics using two different types of equipment. She was the second woman to win Olympic gold in two separate disciplines but the first to do so at the same Winter Olympics. She was the first Czech to win the parallel giant slalom in snowboarding at the FIS Snowboard World Cup.
Robert Prime Beattie was an American skiing coach, skiing promoter and commentator for ABC Sports and ESPN. He was head coach of the U.S. Ski Team from 1961 to 1969 and co-founded the Alpine Skiing World Cup in 1966. His work as a ski-racing commentator for ABC included four Winter Olympic Games, from 1976 through 1988.