Seventeen skiers have won Men's Downhill Gold in the Olympics: they form the most elite group of male alpine athletes to compete in Winter Games. To put this into perspective, more astronauts —twenty-four—have been to the Moon, although only 12 made it to the surface.
The Olympic downhill is a team event. Not merely in the sense that these winners are on this or that national team, but also in that it takes other key players to compete successfully in an Olympic downhill. One critical contributor to success in this event (or in virtually any individual World Cup contest) is the technician who prepares athletes' skis, the tuner/waxer, sometime coach and confident known simply as the "serviceman." Largely anonymous, these wizards of ski prep are regarded by athletes as indispensable to their successes, much as car builders help win victories of superstar NASCAR drivers.
New contributor Blake Lewis, who prepared the skis that Bill Johnson used to take gold in Sarajevo in 1984, is a member of this exclusive club.
Blake has contributed to more than his share of World Cup and Olympic success. He provided many years of race service to the national ski teams and athletes of Austria, Canada and the US, including 4X Speed Skiing World record holder Franz Weber, 3-time World Pro Champion Andre Arnold and Phil and Steve Mahre. German Ski Magazine and the New York Times called Blake “der Ski Doc, the man with the golden hands, he can make a piece of wood dance”.
Now we are fortunate to have Blake join the realskiers team.
What is unfortunate is that the season thus far not allowed us to prepare Blake's contributions. We do not publish "momentary" articles on the member site—for the most part, content is "evergreen"—and we look forward to Blake's contributions for seasons to come.
For now, we invite everyone to visit Blake's blog—and the very fortunate can experience the "golden hands" directly at World Cup Service Center in Bellevue WA.
Blake Lewis