Under Kasper, FIS achieved unprecedented growth

It was a hot June day at the Palau de Congressos de Catalunya – midday break during the 59th FIS Congress at Barcelona in 2014. While the FIS Council and 1,100 delegates were off to power lunches, International Ski Federation President Gian Franco Kasper stood alone in the concrete entryway, smoking cigarettes and giving an occasional hello to passers by, a rare moment of time alone with his own thoughts.

At his core, Kasper was a simple, modest man – an atypical international sports federation leader. His entire adult life was enraptured around the sport of skiing. In a 46-year career with FIS, first as secretary general during the tenure of President Marc Hodler and later as the organization’s president since 1998, he was at the helm while a tiny sports organization grew into one of the most highly regarded entities in Olympic sport.

Kasper, 77, died July 9 after a hospitalization in Zürich less than five weeks after his successor was named. In the time since his passing, luminaries of the Olympic sports world have weighed in on his career and the impact of his long tenure.

FIS staff remembered him for his always-open door and morning coffee breaks at the Oberhofen headquarters. Journalists recalled his storytelling and quotability, sometimes not so flattering. Sport insiders spoke of his cunning negotiating skills – the consummate politician who knew how to get things done. His son knew him as a devoted husband and father who truly cared about getting kids on skis. Like any leader, he had his detractors. But few would argue with the accomplishments that took place in skiing across his nearly half-century tenure. 

An influential leader in sport

While he eschewed the limelight, Kasper’s influence was, indeed, notable. He was a member of the International Olympic Committee from 2000 to 2018, serving on the IOC Executive from 2016-18. At the 2018 IOC Session in Buenos Aires, he received the Olympic Order and was named an IOC honorary member.

He played a role in the management of sport, serving on the World Anti-Doping Agency from 2003 to 2016, was a former president of the Association of International Olympic Winter Sports Federations (AIOWF) and and the Global Association of International Sport Federations (GAISF), as well as past interim chair and member of the SportAccord Council.

His knowledge across sport was highly respected, serving on the IOC Coordination Commission for every Winter Olympics from 2002 to 2022, including chair of the IOC Coordination Commission for the first Winter Youth Olympic Games at Innsbruck in 2012. He spent years on the powerful IOC Television Commission.

“He was a real thinker,” said former USA FIS Council member and vice president Hank Tauber. “He had so much knowledge about sport. He watched other sports intently.”

Tauber, who was a nearly 50-year friend and a close confidant up to his death, recalls Kasper telling him about his time at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. For Kasper, it wasn’t an opportunity for social engagement and Olympic parties, it was 17 days of learning by watching as many events as he could – three to four a day. “He was just a sponge for information on sport,” said Tauber.

“Gian Franco was unique in the international sports community,” said Johan Eliasch, who stepped into Kasper’s shoes as newly-elected FIS president. “He built FIS from a small federation, to the undisputed leader in winter sports, a testament to his vision and work ethic.”

Michel Vion, a world ski champion, Olympian, industry leader at Rossignol Group and president of the French Ski Federation, and now newly-named FIS secretary general, saw Kasper through many periods of change over decades, growing in stature.

“I saw the evolution of Gian Franco,” said Vion. “In a period when the sport was very amateur, it became professional. He brought in a lot of new concepts, new ideas – especially to alpine. He was a good friend.”

While the vast scope of his work occurred within skiing, Kasper’s engagement across the entire sphere of the Olympic world was felt broadly.

“For the entire Olympic Movement and for me, Gian Franco Kasper was the personification of modern ski sport,” said IOC President Thomas Bach. “His achievements go far beyond his own sport and his own federation. With all the reforms and adaptations in the past years under his leadership, he also changed the Olympic Winter Games. The Olympic Movement has greatly benefited from Gian Franco Kasper’s success.”

But while working at the very highest level of sport, what ultimately mattered most to him was simply getting kids on snow to enjoy the same feeling he had as a young boy growing up in St. Moritz.

Pathway to FIS

Kasper grew up in the Swiss canton of Graubünden in a small home not far from the central square of St. Moritz. Skiing was in his family’s blood. His grandfather, Hans Kasper, was a pioneer of ski teaching techniques within the Interassociation Suisse pour le Ski (IASS). His father, Peter, was head of the famous spa in St. Moritz, longtime head of the regional tourist bureau and a key community leader during the 1948 Olympics.

Living in post-war St. Moritz exposed Kasper from an early age to a world of visiting tourists from Germany, Italy, Great Britain and America, providing him a formative influence.

“St. Moritz, it’s a super remote place, a small village up in the Alps,” said his son Gian Marchet Kasper. “But it has always been a very international place. That probably had quite a big influence on him growing up in this kind of an international environment.”

His father’s engagement in sport brought him into contact with many Olympic leaders of the day. That family lineage, aided by his own innate ability to absorb and learn, provided him with a built-in set of mentors who would aid him in establishing his own footprint moving through his career. A longtime family friend, Thomi Keller would become an example and mentor for young Gian Franco in the world of international sport.

Keller, a rower who lost his Olympic opportunity when Switzerland boycotted the 1956 Melbourne Olympics over the Soviet Union’s invasion of Hungary, would go on become head of the Féderation Internationale des Sociétés d’Aviron (rowing) and GAISF (which Kasper himself would later lead). He also led the innovative consortium of Swiss Timing, the cooperative association of leading Swiss watch brands, which became a hallmark of sport timing. 

Gian Franco was just four when the 1948 Olympics came to his hometown. While very young, from that moment on, sport touched his life in many ways.

Living in the Olympic village led him to sample many sports, from alpine and cross country skiing, to bobsled and skeleton on the fabled Cresta Run, equestrian, water skiing and golf. He also learned to ski jump on the Olympiaschanze complex between St. Moritz Bad and Silvaplana. When he was 18, he took up a bet to go off a ski jump on cross country skis. He may have won the bet, but he broke both legs.

After attending private school at Alpinum Lyceum in neighboring Zuoz, he went on to the University of Zürich, studying psychology, philosophy and journalism. He used those learnings to become editor of the St. Moritz Kurier in 1969, a free publication distributed through hotels and restaurants, mostly to international tourists. It gave him an initial outlet for his written voice, and an  opportunity to practice his linguistic skills by translating every story to multiple foreign languages as well as growing his business acumen as he took on not only editorial, but distribution.

His future was forged in the early 1970s when Serge Lang’s World Cup came to St. Moritz. He would walk up the mountain trail from the village to Corviglia, watching legends like Bernhard Russi and Annemarie Moser-Proell come flying down Piz Nair to win downhills. 

The 1971 World Cup was a first for St. Moritz since the fabled White Circus began in 1967. It came about after the traditional Lauberhorn in the Swiss mountain resort of Wengen struggled with snow that January. 

The opportunity for St. Moritz to step into the World Cup was timely. Swiss downhill legend Bernhard Russi recalled how important St. Moritz had been in the 1940s, ‘50s and even ‘60s, but then nothing.

“The new course was outside of the forest,” he said. “It was a super alpine course with all the challenges you can have above the treeline with the wind. We were totally excited about the race there.”

In that opening World Cup in January 1971, Russi had seemingly won and was heading back to the hotel with skis on his shoulder. Suddenly, he stopped when he heard the race announcer scream excitedly as 39th-starting Swiss Walter Tresch, who was his roommate, came down to steal the victory by eight-hundredths. Russi lost the victory, but it made for a Swiss podium sweep.

That next December, the World Cup returned to St. Moritz and Russi picked up the win – just two months before his historic Olympic gold in Sapporo.

Already in 1971, Kasper, at just 27, was standing out as a leader and was tabbed by the community as its spokesperson in an aggressive bid to bring more international events to the Engadin region.

In May, U.S. FIS leaders including FIS Vice President Bud Little, Tauber, Gus Raaum and Al Merrill sat together with other national ski associations at the Hotel Crystal in St. Moritz. It was a preview for 1974 World Championship candidates who would be bidding that month at the FIS Congress. The USA was touting Jackson Hole. Kasper, the young spokesperson for St. Moritz, clearly stood out.

From St. Moritz, the entourage headed out for the FIS Congress at the Adriatic resort of Opatija in then Yugoslavia (now Croatia). Swiss Ski Association President Karl Glatthard started the presentations, offering free room and board for teams. Kasper engineered a multimedia show with six slide projectors that outlined the St. Moritz bid in dramatic fashion. After the first ballot, the Canadian resort of Lake Louise and the USA’s Jackson Hole dropped out of the voting. On the second ballot, St. Moritz’ slim lead over Garmisch-Partenkirchen grew, and Switzerland became the host for 1974.

Two years later, in 1973, St. Moritz successfully bid against Lake Placid for the 1947 Bobsled World Championships, with the event to start the day after the Alpine World Ski Championships in 1974.

As a young PR chief, Kasper was bold and cunning in helping St. Moritz navigate a turbulent landscape with the World Championships. When the Swiss government enacted a Sunday driving ban that winter in response to a global oil crisis, he was brazen in suggesting the financial disaster that would occur if it were enforced on international visitors in Graubünden. He deftly walked through Swiss President Ernst Brugger’s opening ceremony comments on the clash between economic opportunity and the environment. And he weathered the storm when fog forced delays in the event program.

It was clear foreshadowing of the frank, candid diplomacy that would earmark his career as a sport leader. When it was all over, he rolled right the World Bobsled Championships.

It was a remarkable winter for Kasper in his home of St. Moritz. He loved his engagement in sport. Among those he met was Sigge Bergman of Sweden, then the secretary general of FIS. 

Bergman, who trained in the Hannes Schneider ski school at St. Anton am Arlberg and is often credited with bringing alpine skiing to the nordic nation of Sweden, was a dynamic sport leader. His FIS role brought him into contact with every facet of the sport. He wasn’t bashful in calling out Olympic leaders like IOC President Avery Brundage, who he chastised over his stand against so-called professionals in ski sport.

Bergman’s role intrigued Kasper. And with the Swede approaching 70, Kasper saw an opportunity for himself. As legend has it, he scribed a two-sentence note to Hodler to express his interest. He heard nothing.

A rising star in one of Switzerland’s most popular regions for international visitors, after the World Championships he was asked to open a new Swiss tourism office in Montreal. A year into his new career selling Switzerland to North American visitors, he finally heard back from Hodler, who dispatched him to Edgar Stern’s Stanford Court Hotel in San Francisco for the 1975 FIS Congress. There he learned he had the job.

Bergman, who had been managing his role from his native Sweden, was nearing retirement. Hodler was anxious to establish a foothold in the Alps as FIS was beginning to grow. Kasper began with FIS in 1975 as its full time administrator as Bergman transitioned into retirement.

Early leadership

Kasper joined an international federation that was a bastion of longevity in leadership. Hodler, who took on the presidency in 1951, was only its third president. Sweden’s Ivar Holmquist, a military commander who headed the Swedish Army during the period of World War II, served as FIS president from 1924-34. He was succeeded by Nicolai Ramm Østgaard, a Norwegian military officer and aide-de-camp for King Olav V, who held the role from 1934 until Hodler took over in 1951.

“You could almost call it a father and son relationship with Marc Hodler.”

Son Gian Marchet Kasper

The period with Marc Hodler was quite a different structure than FIS today. While ever in control of his vision, Hodler was a non-executive president. He did not work for FIS, but was its leader. He sought someone as the executive chief who he could trust to implement his vision.

“You could almost call it a father and son relationship with Marc Hodler,” said Kasper’s son Gian, now a lawyer in Zürich. “He was a great personality and I think he trusted my father 100 percent. He left him to free hand and just controlled that everything was in line. He put a lot of trust in other people.”

Hodler, along with Keller, were key mentors for Kasper with each of them providing a pathway for his professional growth while he was secretary general of FIS.

He developed “… connections within the international sports movement, thanks to Marc (Hodler), who really made sure he was involved at the IOC when he was secretary general,” said Sarah Lewis, who served for 21 years as secretary general herself during Kasper’s tenure as president. “He was also on the council of GAISF – they were very visionary people involved within sport that guided and steered what he was then able to do at FIS. Thomi Keller was very much a father figure to Gian Franco in international sports – he was his real mentor and Marc guided him very well in the IOC.”

As Hodler reached his 47th year as president in 1998, there was little talk of succession. But with the 41st FIS Congress in Prague on the horizon, Hodler had a plan. It was time to retire but he wanted to do it on his terms. 

One afternoon that spring he called Dr. Josef Zenhäusern, then head of the Swiss ski federation. His instructions were simple. He asked Zenhäusern to write a short nomination of Gian Franco Kasper as the Swiss candidate for president of FIS, and get it postmarked by a midnight deadline. Zenhäusern obliged, and Kasper became the sole nominee despite protests from other nations. He was elected by acclamation in Prague as just the fourth president of the International Ski Federation.

In his acceptance speech, Kaper paraphrased Winston Churchill in saying, “Never, dear friends, in human history has one person done so much for so many skiers of the world as Marc Hodler. Thank you, Marc, and I promise you I’ll take care of your baby, the International Ski Federation.”

His speech that day was marked by recognition of a changing landscape of sport, the growth of commercialism and the battle for television time. He spoke of modernization and professionalism in order to survive in the new millennium. But he also highlighted what would become his calling card over the next two decades, using the exposure of ski racing to grow participation in sport across many more national ski associations.

Kasper said: “In my opinion, the FIS should be like a big pyramid with a very large base and a top which is a promotional tool or a showcase to attract people, and mainly young people, to sport.” He went on to highlight the importance of ski clubs and national ski associations, and foreshadowed new support programs for smaller nations.

Unparalleled sport growth

At the convention center of the Atrium Hilton in Prague in 1998, there were delegates from 63 national ski associations – nearly double the number of nations when he began his career in 1975. That number would more than double again to a staggering 145 member national ski associations by the end of his tenure in 2021 – many far removed from traditional snow-covered mountain regions. Today, FIS touches every continent except Antarctica.

When Kasper went to his first Olympics for FIS at Innsbruck in 1976, there were 16 medal events for skiing. On the 2022 Beijing program there will be 55. In 1975, there was just one discipline with a World Cup tour. Now there are six, with a dozen overall crystal globes awarded each season. 

That record of growth at the Olympic level is the envy of international sports federations worldwide.

“He had an incredible track record of getting new sports into the Olympic Games,” said U.S. Ski & Snowboard President and CEO Tiger Shaw. “And for that, everybody is incredibly thankful. He was exceptional in that way.”

Bill Marolt, who served 12 years on the FIS Council during his 18-year tenure as president and CEO of U.S. Ski & Snowboard, recognized the impact Kasper had on the sport “He saw tremendous, tremendous change in the sport,” said Marolt. “He made it possible for the FIS to grow into what it is today – it’s a model international federation.”

Marolt pointed to transparency as one of the keys. “If you look at the annual reports, particularly the financial side, it was very clear where the resources were generated and how they were allocated. We never had any real controversy over finances. People could see what was going on. It was all there.”

In Marolt’s eyes, that solid foundation leaves FIS in a good place for the future. “FIS is in a good position to make some changes and to move forward to become an even better international federation.”

Much of the growth on the Olympic program has come from new disciplines. Freestyle and snowboard in Beijing will account for 44% of the medal events under FIS. While cross country hasn’t increased its Olympic footprint, it has done a dramatic overhaul of its formats. At the same time, alpine has seen very little change in its format or Olympic presence since super-G was added at Calgary in 1988, and the nations’ team event in 2018. But it grew tremendously in stature.

The FIS Ski World Cup, as well as the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships, have become valuable sports properties and global platforms for stars from Hermann Maier to Lindsey Vonn to Ted Ligety and Mikeala Shiffrin. The World Cup has become an integral part of the world’s finest resorts, as well as being showcased in metro areas from Munich to Moscow. But one of Kasper’s greatest passions was the nations’ team event. 

In Kasper’s mind, the team event was a vital cog in boosting alpine He made it his primary focus for nearly a decade. The event made its World Championships debut at Vail/Beaver Creek in 2015 and was approved for the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang just a few months later.

“The athlete, media and fan reaction to both events has been overwhelmingly positive, and I believe both events will make a fine addition to the Olympic Games,” Kasper told Ski Racing Media when the IOC decision came down in June 2015.

“The nations’ team event is a very good opportunity,” said Vion. “In alpine skiing, we only have events against the clock. So it’s good to also have a certain discipline with the spirit of the team or the individual parallel, for example, with a fight between two racers. We need that.”

Some of the biggest sport changes came in a strategic overhaul of cross country in the early 2000s. 

“Gian Franco fully supported cross country development steps,” said Jürg Capol, who was race director from 2003-12 before moving into a FIS marketing role. “He wanted to see a new cross country spirit and focus.” From new racing formats like the TV-friendly sprint to the Tour de Ski stage races, cross country skiing was transformed during that period. 

Russi, the 1972 Olympic downhill champion, became one of the closest alpine sport leaders to Kasper over the years. After his retirement as a racer, Hodler had called on Russi to become a course architect for downhill race courses, beginning with the 1988 Olympic downhill run at Nakiska near Calgary.

“Once Gian Franco became president, I really had a very close relationship with him in all the discussions for alpine skiing,” said Russi.

Russi, who became head of the FIS Alpine Committee in 2010, has been at the forefront of the sport most of his life. He views alpine skiing as one of the important areas of growth under Kasper. “Alpine skiing became a very important product in television and the entertainment industry,” he said. “There are two ways to do this. You can do like ATP (tennis) or FIFA (soccer) and make a kind of revolution, or you stand together with your roots and try to develop your sport slowly without any revolutions. That’s what Gian Franco did. I think that was a very positive move from his side that he did it like this.”

The early 2010s were a tumultuous period for Kasper as he, and FIS, faced criticism from alpine athletes – in particular over proposed changes to ski radius in the name of safety. Ski Racing carried a poignant letter from David Dodge rebutting FIS’ safety claims. At the annual World Cup Forum Alpinum for media at the opener in Sölden, Bode Miller and Ted Ligety were outspoken in their comments about the new skis.

“It’s not against Austria but I don’t see any reason why 12 or 13 Austrians should be at the start and only four Italians or three Swiss or whatever. I don’t think this is moving in the right direction.”

Gian franco kasper, 2013

In a 2013 interview with Ski Racing’s Erica Bulman from his office in Oberhofen, Kasper had the stage to talk more broadly about alpine formats, the combined, team event and how to increase the value of the World Cup.

“We should in principle change a lot of things. I believe, and I know that people don’t like this, but sooner or later we have to reduce the number of athletes per nation. I am fully in favor of giving every athlete a possibility but we really opened the participation in the World Cup through [providing spots to the] European Cup winner and North American Cup winner. But in the end, all races are won more or less by one nation. It’s not against Austria but I don’t see any reason why 12 or 13 Austrians should be at the start and only four Italians or three Swiss or whatever. I don’t think this is moving in the right direction. We have to reduce this. We should have a change, this is quite clear. I think it’s correct to have four, five, or six from each nation, but not an unlimited number. That would reduce the field a bit, which makes it more interesting for television.

The value of television

During the interview, Kasper took direct aim at the structure of television rights for the World Cup, something that is still much the same today, eight years later.

“We have a complete chaos with the television rights. We have agencies. We have individual organizers selling rights, and in other countries we have the national ski associations selling it. This is complete chaos and it’s not good for our sport, it’s not good for the income. We could maximize the income in a good way if we put everything under one roof. That means FIS would be responsible for the selling of those rights.”

The evolution (or revolution) of the broadcast television world in the 1980s and into the ‘90s ultimately changed the face of sport. FIS adapted to the new norm, with the value of its events providing significant funding to both FIS and the national ski associations.

“To understand the history of FIS you have to look at what happened in European television.”

EBU HEAD OF SPORT RICHARD BUNN

“To understand the history of FIS you have to look at what happened in European television,” said Richard Bunn, a longtime FIS broadcast consultant and former head of sport at the European Broadcast Union. “When Franco was general secretary in the ‘80s, there were basically no options. It was public service, the national broadcaster or nothing else.”

But in the ‘80s, deregulation of broadcasting brought competition. And commercial broadcasters became prolific. “Suddenly the door opened,” he exclaimed.

At the 1992 FIS Congress in Budapest, a change in broadcast rights rules gave more authority to the host national ski associations for World Cup events. At the same time, a company called Halva began acquiring rights from the nations. With Halva now the primary rights holder, it drove competition amongst national broadcasters – both public and commercial – pushing up rights fees and putting more money into the pockets of national ski associations.

“Gian Franco saw the advantage because ultimately more money was going into the national federations,” said Bunn. “That meant that they could put more money into sport development and into organizing events – more money was going into the system and that to him was very important.”

At the same time, the FIS retained rights for all of its World Championships. So while broadcast rights fees for World Cups were going to national ski associations, the World Championships revenue went directly to FIS.

Bunn looks at the evolution of television combined with the tremendous growth of FIS sports in the Olympic program as Kasper’s greatest accomplishments. That was achieved through its relationship with the IOC and the ability to hold together a rapidly growing and extremely diverse organization.

“The strength of Gian Franco was that he was a very modest man,” said Bunn. “He hated the public attention. He just liked to do stuff in the background. I think probably the strongest thing he did was that he managed to keep the FIS together, actually. To me, that was his greatest achievement!

“Look what he managed to get added to the Olympic program. That helped grow and strengthen the sport, but also helped with the unity of the sport under FIS.”

Small nations play a larger role

When looking at the growth of FIS, most point to Kasper’s work with small nations as a key to growth and spreading the word of sport. “Gian Franco had a very good cooperation with all nations and brought them very close together,” said longtime FIS marketing chief Christian Knauth, who was constantly at Kasper’s side during his tenure as secretary general and much of his presidency. “That was the most important element of his leadership.”

“The FIS? It’s a very complicated house,” said Zenhäusern, the former head of the Swiss federation who oversaw the FIS small nations development program. “It’s a building of more than a hundred different associations. And he managed that – not only the five, six or 10 top nations, but also the little nations so that they have the feeling that they are part of the so-called FIS family. 

“And this was, in my opinion, his greatest success, to have this family together, giving the small nations the feeling that they are also very important.”

The program was initiated by Hodler in the 1990s when he was looking to take the decision-making process for World Championships away from the broad FIS Congress where all nations vote, and give it to the FIS Council. In doing so, application fees were then charged to bidding candidates with the money used by FIS to support development programs in small nations. 

During Kasper’s tenure the small nations grew and took on significant power, of sorts, as an influential and well-organized voting block.

“Gian Franco did tremendous work on this,” said Vion. “Johan Eliasch and myself, we are of the same opinion. It’s still a popular sports product. The World championships bring value and more income. On the other hand, we have the second pillar which is clearly development. There’s a link between the two pillars. The more revenue we have, the better our product, the more that can be given to development. It’s a circle.”

“To expand the world of skiing you need good national ski associations around the world,” added Russi. “You have to help them with many things, and also with financial support. I think this is what he really did.”

Bringing children to the snow

That spirit in Kasper manifested itself in the passion he brought for sport growth. He had a keen interest in growing participation in sport worldwide. In 2007, FIS initiated the Bring Children to the Snow program, designed to encourage national ski associations to conduct events to get kids active and on snow.

Since then, over a thousand local organizers have conducted nearly 10,000 events in 53 nations, reaching over seven million kids!

“My father kept saying, ‘you know, the ski racing that the FIS was organizing is only a marketing tool to promote the fun of skiing,’” said Kasper’s son Gian. “His goal in life was always that every child who has a chance should be on skis. That’s why he always put a lot of emphasis on the kids or junior skiing.”

“This idea of bringing children to the snow was very close to the heart of Gian Franco,” said Andrew Cholinski, who has shepherded the Bring Children to the Snow program for over a decade. “It’s something that he felt had to happen in order for the sport around the world to survive. It was very much a big passion and had a lot of heart behind it.”

Cholinski remembers his first meeting with Kasper who told him, “Keep it simple.” 

In 2017 Kasper and Cholinski were walking down a snow-covered pedestrian trail to the finish at the World Championships in St. Moritz. Kasper spotted a young boy with a FIS SnowKidz hat and said to Cholinski, “See there? That’s why we do this.”

Conducting the orchestra

The concept of balancing all of these pieces of a very diverse, global organization is confounding. But Kasper learned from a master in Hodler.

“Going onto the FIS Council with Gian Franco as the president was sort of an education in Politics 101,” said Paine. “The guy had complete control over everything. He had everything orchestrated. He had an ability to think about how the meeting would unfold over five hours and he’d end up with exactly what he set out to accomplish at the end of that five hours. It was done with incredible forethought.”

Paine pointed to Secretary General Lewis as an important tool in making it happen. “Her sense of details and leaving no stone unturned, was similar to his approach.”

A central theme in describing Kasper was that he was intentful in everything he did. “There was a purpose and a goal with everything he set out to accomplish,” added Paine. “Even if you were coming in to just have a cup of coffee with him for an hour – he knew how a message would spread.”

As Lewis views the evolution of FIS, she points notably to the era of Hodler and his close relationship with the IOC, especially then President Juan Antonio Samaranch, as a cornerstone for what was to come during Kasper’s tenure.

“Gian Franco was very well connected and obviously very shrewd and intelligent,” she said. “Marc was a volunteer president. (Gian Franco) was the first full time operative president and he was at the helm of the organization during a transformational period.”

Lewis, who built global relationships for FIS and helped execute on its vision for two decades, came to a crossroads with Kasper last year when she lost her role on a no-confidence vote of the FIS Council.

Despite her abrupt ending with FIS, Lewis respected the opportunity Kasper had given her. “There’s no question I mean, he gave me the chance, the opportunity, and there weren’t exactly a lot of female secretary generals, to put it mildly,” she said. 

Lewis feels it was Kasper’s close working relationship with then IOC Secretary General Françoise Zweifel, seeing the value a woman could bring to the role.

“Let’s call it the foresight or the vision to appoint a female secretary general,” said Lewis. “He could see the value of having a woman and he also liked the idea of having someone from a neutral nation.”

Candor was his signature

Anyone who ever worked with him, knew that Kasper spoke his mind.

In a tribute to him a month before his death, Bach spoke in a video to the FIS Congress that would elect the presidential successor. He lauded the longtime FIS leader for his contributions to sport then added, “Through all of this, you have always been yourself – very authentic. For some, maybe too authentic,” he said smiling.

Gian Franco Kasper was anything but politically correct. While he never sought the spotlight, it often found him. What was important to Kasper were the decisions that were made to better FIS, grow the sport and help athletes. He was less concerned about what others might think.

“Sometimes he was, for some people, too candid,” said Tauber. “But Bach said he was the only person that’s ever been running a worldwide sport who spoke what’s on his mind.”

A journalist himself, over the years Kasper became one of the most quotable leaders in sport, often to the chagrin of those around him. The world of news had evolved immensely from his days with the Kurier in St. Moritz. It was a hard adaptation for him as social media grew and he often fell into traps with click-bait reporters.

“Gian Franco Kasper was one of the most compelling interviews in the business of sport,” said Italian-based American sports business journalist Brian Pinelli, a frequent contributor to Ski Racing Media. “He was candid, engaging, outspoken, irreverent, often brutally honest, critical at times, and frequently outright funny, even if it got him into hot water on occasion. 

“He spoke his mind!”

Yes, that he did.

In 2019 during an interview with the Olympic business trade publication Around the Rings, he shared his thoughts on the commercialism of sport. “In the old days of skiing, if you had a problem, you went to the next mountain hut, had a beer and discussed things,” said Kasper. “Nowadays, the lawyers of each athlete come out and big discussions are going to court. This is not easy. This is the professionalism or commercialism of sport.” 

He often injected his dry humor into interviews. In 2015 he was asked by Around the Rings about when the FIS Ski World Cup would return to the 2014 Olympic site in Sochi. There was hardly a follow up when he replied: “There was a pope named Gregory who made the Gregorian calendar that we all use and he just didn’t put in enough weekends in the winter,” Kasper quipped at the time. “In 1500, he made this calendar completely wrong.”

Over the years, his very frank, often unpolished remarks about women in sport, climate change and dictatorships made headlines, often followed by apologies. In the last decade of his career he found himself in challenging situations more frequently,

“Some of these comments may have caused firestorms and PR nightmares,” added Pinelli, “but I do not believe that Gian Franco ever intended an ounce of harm. He was kind, friendly, and approachable. Talking to him was like having a conversation with your grandfather about the world of sports.” 

To those around him, he would not let his own feelings show. “I never read those stories,” Kasper would often say. But it was, indeed, very troublesome for him personally.

“People who knew my dad knew how he meant these things,” said his son. “But he obviously said it in the wrong way and the media misunderstood. It was definitely his fault. But that’s not the way he meant it. And that was really bugging him to the last day.”

But what really set him apart was his accessibility.

“He always had time for everyone,” said Swiss journalist Richard Hegglin, emphasizing the words always and everyone. “Not only was he very approachable and friendly, but he also had a lot of confidence in the journalists. Maybe too much,  you could say.”

Hegglin recalled how much Kasper enjoyed just chatting, occasionally making flippant remarks as a part of the conversation. “Over time, the zeitgeist or spirit changed, but Kasper always stayed the same. This turned out to be a disadvantage for him later, especially with younger journalists. Myself and our old guard, we always valued him highly.”

Today, the Swiss journalist looks back fondly on his time with Kasper.

“Gian Franco Kasper was one of the outstanding leaders in the world of sport,” said Hegglin. “He respected the opinion of those who thought differently. Sport and athletes were always the focus. He always looked for a mix between tradition and progress – even if critics accused him of a lack of willingness to reform.”

Longtime Ski Racing publisher, the late Gary Black, nurtured a cordial but sometimes challenging friendship with Kasper. He applauded him when FIS made positive changes, but was also not bashful in taking him on with his Black Diamonds column. Black’s commentary was known for not only the criticisms he might outline, but for his proposed solutions. A common theme was ever present in his 2015 Black Diamonds speaking to the value of generational change.

An open door

In the early morning hours every day, Kasper would make his way from his home between Bern and Thun to the FIS headquarters in Oberhofen, a tiny village on the north side of the Thunersee with a sweeping view to the towering peaks of the Bernese Oberland to the south.

He was always among the first in the office, often between 5:00 and 6:00 a.m., sitting down at his desk, door open, as he devoured the newspapers of the day. He was a voracious reader, consuming news from Blick, Tages-Anzeiger, Neue Zürcher Zeitung and more. He followed the business of his Olympic world with Sport Intern, Ski Racing and InsidetheGames.com. He would occasionally use an iPad, but found more comfort with the thin pages and smudgy ink of newsprint.

“He always had an open door,” said Jolanda von Allmen, his executive assistant. “I think this reflects a little bit how open he was – he was open to everybody. There was never a barrier.” She recalled how happy he was to speak directly to people at all levels from simple feedback to detailed stories.

It’s a Swiss tradition at 10 o’clock every morning to gather for znüni, a traditional coffee break, but really more of a cultural gathering. It was a ritual for Gian Franco, every day. It was a time to meet together not so much as staff, but as friends.

“He loved to tell his very nice stories from all those 46 years,” said von Allmen. “Our new staff really appreciated the opportunity to hear all this history. He was just a book of stories.”

He would regale his audience with stories of years past, with his unique sense of humor. 

His early morning arrivals were partly designed to ensure he had sufficient time to return home each day during lunch to care for his wheelchair-bound wife and to do household chores.

“With my father, family always came first when he was at home and wasn’t travelling,” said Gian. “He always came home at lunch. He went shopping first and arrived at home at 12. He cooked for my mother, ate with my mother, then cleaned the dishes and went back to the office. He did that literally every day and he also did that to see me. Up until his last day, I was on the phone with my dad every day.”

“His personal situation was so challenging, but he never let it get in the way of running the organization,” said American Dexter Paine, who has served on the FIS Council since 2014 and would frequently visit Kasper in Switzerland. “He only talked about it a few times, but it was clearly difficult. I just always felt sad about that.”

FIS and America

If there was any one nation that saw benefits from the growth of FIS sports, it was U.S. Ski & Snowboard. No other national ski association worked as strategically to advocate for new sports from freestyle in the 1980s, snowboard in the mid-90s, freeski in 2011, moves towards gender equity in nordic and an overall growth in events across all sports.

But the relationship between the USA and Kasper’s FIS was always tricky.

“There are many challenges we had to work through and with a tone of understanding how European sport works,” said Shaw. “We had our differences. Yet we always had very frank discussions and he was able to lead the organization through a difficult transition and challenges with everything from doping to financial, adding new sports in the Olympics. But, in the end, he persevered for the FIS and for the betterment of sport worldwide.”

In his tenure, the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships made three highly-successful visits to Vail/Beaver Creek. And while he respected the outcome each time, it was a challenge for the Vail Valley Foundation and U.S. Ski & Snowboard to get there.

At the 2004 FIS Congress in Miami, the USA and Vail/Beaver Creek came to South Florida with a plan to host not only the 2009 Alpine World Ski Championships, but to add in freestyle and snowboard. It was a unique array and the Americans felt they had FIS support. They did not. It would be a long six years before Vail/Beaver Creek was ultimately awarded the 2015 alpine event.

For Vail Valley Foundation presidents John Garnsey and later Ceil Folz, it was a frustrating period. 

“I do think he appreciated the passion and efforts of the Vail crew,” said Folz diplomatically. “He really liked Pepi (Gramshammer) very much and they had a warm relationship. He always took time to meet with me in Europe. But I wouldn’t say he was an enormous fan of the US.”

Over the years, Kasper seemed to warm up to the World Championships in America. “Each edition that the Vail Valley has hosted has been bigger and better, and there is not a doubt in my mind that the next two weeks will be a fantastic celebration of alpine ski racing both on the slopes and around the towns of Vail and Beaver Creek,” he said at the start of the 2015 Championships, that also saw a visit from IOC President Bach.

Looking forward, Paine is hoping for a more positive relationship for North America with the new leadership, speaking recently to Ski Racing’s Brian Pinelli about the future. “I think both Johan and (new FIS secretary general) Michel (Vion) understand and appreciate the need for us to have our sports be successful in the U.S., considering the size of the industry and television market,” he said. “The biggest reason to be optimistic is that our new leadership team is more open to sharing and having events in North America, as well as understanding how important the success of our sports in North America is to the success of the sports globally.” 

Son of the Mountains

Few saw the personal family side of Gian Franco Kasper. He was one of the most influential individuals in all of Olympic sport. But unseen by sport leaders was the focus he put on family.

His life was spent taking that experience his family gave him growing up in the mountains of Graubünden and passing it on to his own son, skiing with him until he was in his 50s and the eight broken legs caught up with him, and driving the boat for family water ski outings on Lago di Como. His professional career was much the same, sharing the joy of skiing with boys and girls across more than a hundred nations to help them learn to enjoy the sensation of sliding on snow. In a crowded race venue, he was more likely to focus on kids than on the stars of the day.

It was after midnight this past winter in the Oberstdorf Restaurant at Hotel Frank’s during the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships. FIS Council members including Paine, Vion, Roman Kumpost from Czech Republic, Erik Roeste of Norway and Sweden’s Mats Arjes were seated for dinner – each at separate COVID-distanced tables. Amidst all of them was President Kasper.

“They put us in this large room each with individual tables,” recalled Paine. “We could yell across the room at each other during dinner. Gian Franco just loved being able to interact with people. He was lonely during COVID. But at 12:30 a.m. he was still carrying on and loving it. That was a wonderful evening with him, just a few months before he died.”

Vion recalls that evening vividly. “After the dinner was always the best time because he was more relaxed,” he said. “He was a very funny person with a lot of humor. That night he shared stories for two or three hours. He was much more relaxed than usual and that was a good souvenir for me.”

“As FIS President, he was a man of the world. Born and raised in St. Moritz, he remained a son of the mountains.”

journalist richard heggelin

One thing every colleague shared about him was his passion for sport and how it, truly, was his life. Now that he is gone, they also shared the wish that they had spent even more time with him  in the past. Life is fleeting.

“Gian Franco … he just had such a passion for the sport,” said Tauber. “This was his life! The fact that he actually passed away now is, to me, not surprising. The one thing that defined his life was FIS.”

“Gian Franco had a big heart. He was a pure sportsman,” said Russi. “He didn’t want to sell skiing just for commercial reasons. He lived in the industry with the philosophy that sport is more important than money. I think that’s very nice and a very good thing. But it is difficult to combine it together these days.”

“He gave his heart and soul for the last 23 years – he had an encyclopedic memory and knowledge of the sport,” Paine told Ski Racing in a July interview. “It’s really sad – here’s a guy whose whole life was wrapped up in FIS and we never got a chance to say thank you.”

“Our story started at Sapporo in 1972,” said FIS Vice President Aki Murasato of Japan, one of Kasper’s closest allies and personal friends. “Gian Franco was my dearest friend, a great mentor and like a big brother. Along with the entire snowsports community, we will continue to strive to make our sport more attractive and will carry on his vision and spirit.”

Von Allmen, his longtime assistant, was emotional, too, in her own thoughts. “It’s always a hard time when this happens. But I know that he’s in a better place now. I think I’m the same as many that are just sad that we didn’t have a chance to pay tribute to him.”

Heggelin, the Swiss journalist, put it into a fitting perspective.

“As FIS President, he was a man of the world,” he said. “Born and raised in St. Moritz, he remained a son of the mountains. Skiing and snow sports were his passion from the first to the last day. Without them he couldn‘t live.”

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GROWTH OF FIS TIMELINE

975 – Gian Franco Kasper, at the age of 29, begins his career with FIS as secretary general, working with FIS President Marc Hodler.
1977 – Freestyle skiing joins as a new FIS discipline.
1979 – Ski jumping joins alpine as a new World Cup tour with a debut event in December at Cortina d’Ampezzo
1982 – Super-G is added as a crystal globe in the FIS Ski World Cup
1983 – Nordic combined joins as a World Cup, debuting in Seefeld in December
1988 – Super-G is added as the first new single race Olympic alpine event since 1956
1990 – Over a thousand FIS delegates from more than 100 nations celebrate the opening of the new FIS headquarters in Oberhofen, located in the heart of Switzerland’s Bernese Oberland.
1990 – World Ski Flying Championship makes its debut
1994 – FIS adds the relatively new discipline of snowboarding to its program with a World Cup schedule beginning in Zell am See/Kaprun that November
1998 – Snowboarding makes its Olympic debut with halfpipe and giant slalom at Shigakogen near Nagano
1998 – At the 41st FIS Congress in Prague, 149 delegates from 63 nations select Kasper to succeed retiring FIS President Marc Hodler
2000 – Gian Franco Kasper named an IOC member
2002 – Kicking off a dramatic period of change for cross country, the new sprint event makes its debut in time for the 2002 Olympics
2006 – FIS exceeds a total of 10,000 competitions across all sports worldwide
2006 – Patterned after popular cycling stage races, the Tour de Ski changes the face of cross country ski racing with its debut across central European nations
2006 – Snowboarding expands at the Olympics with the addition of snowboardcross
2007 – Looking to support its member nations and expand the sport worldwide, FIS launches its Bring Children to the Snow program, reaching over 7 million kids in 53 nations.
2009 – Liberec plays host to the first women’s ski jumping event in World Championships
2010 – Ski cross added to the Olympic program
2014 – Slopestyle skiing and snowboarding, halfpipe skiing and women’s ski jumping added to the Olympic program
2015 – Kreischberg, Austria plays host to the first combined freestyle and snowboard World Championships
2017 – Started in 1967, the FIS Ski World Cup celebrates its 50th season
2018 – The alpine parallel event, along with snowboard big air, added to the Olympic program
2020 – The women’s FIS Nordic Combined World Cup debuts
2021 – Women’s large hill jumping is added to the World Championship program