Sunday’s closing ceremonies were a chance to celebrate the success of America’s athletes during the 2018 Winter Games.
And, it was our once-every-four-years chance to note how the path to one category of Olympic gold was pioneered 70 years ago by a Vancouver housewife.
That was Gretchen Fraser, who became the first non-European to win an Olympic skiing medal. She took the silver in the Alpine combined in the 1948 Winter Games at St. Moritz, Switzerland.
Two days later, she struck gold. … Or, as The Associated Press reported on Feb. 6, 1948: “It was an historic day for the Red, White and Blue from the moment Mrs. Gretchen Fraser, the flying housewife from Vancouver, Wash., flashed across first in the women’s special slalom.”
It was America’s first Olympic gold medal in skiing.
Fraser did two interviews with The Columbian before her death in 1994, recalling how she and her husband, Don Fraser, actually had four Olympic berths between them. He was a member of the 1936 American ski team.
They were scheduled to be husband-and-wife teammates in 1940, but the Winter Olympics were canceled because of World War II.
The war wound up playing another role in her skiing career. While Don Fraser was with a fighter squadron, Gretchen Fraser volunteered as a rehabilitation worker on the slopes of Sun Valley, Idaho. She helped develop an amputee skiing program for U.S. servicemen who had lost arms or legs in combat.
The Frasers were trying to establish an oil business in Vancouver after the war. Gretchen Fraser, the bookkeeper for Fraser Oil, wasn’t sure if she should give the Olympics another shot.
Her husband encouraged her and said “I’d always regret it if I didn’t go to the tryouts,” she recalled.
Heavy medal
Fraser continued to be part of the U.S. Olympic program after her medal-winning effort. She was manager of the U.S. women’s ski team at the 1952 Winter Olympics, and continued to represent the Olympic movement in appearances with her gold medal.
It was not a gold-plated medallion, Fraser noted. It was six ounces of solid gold.
“I’ve worn it to dinner, and had it swing forward as I was being seated,” she told The Columbian before her death. “It broke the dinner plate.”
Off Beat lets members of The Columbian news team step back from newspaper beats to write the story behind the story.
