SKIING NEWS ITEM

Squaw Valley Founder Alex Cushing Dies

THURSDAY, 24 AUGUST 2006

SQUAW VALLEY, Calif. (Aug. 21) - The U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association is hailing the late Alex Cushing, founder of Squaw Valley resort and the energy behind bringing the Winter Olympics back to North America in 1960, as "a man of vision to match the mountain he developed."

Cushing, a longtime supporter of the U.S. Ski Team who was inducted three years ago as a member of the U.S. National Ski Hall of Fame, died Saturday at 92 at his home in Newport, R.I., his family said.

Cushing, born in 1913 to a wealthy family and educated at Harvard University, is the only ski area founder to have been on the cover of Time magazine, a tribute to his masterful work and tenacious vision in bringing the 1960 Winter Games to the big-mountain atmosphere of Squaw Valley and the Lake Tahoe region.

A well-placed Manhattan lawyer, he got into the resort business after serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II. The resort opened on Thanksgiving Day 1949 with a rope tow and the world's biggest double chairlift - and an epic mountain. In 1955, he surprised the sports world when he was awarded the 1960 Games after presenting the International Olympic Committee with an oversized model of the resort and what he planned to do with it - even though at that time he had just the one lift. Those were the first Olympics to be televised (CBS broadcast 15 hours of Olympic coverage).

Cushing would make the resort a world-class destination and, all the while, throw his enthusiastic support to USSA and the U.S. Ski Team. Squaw Valley last hosted the 2002 Chevy Truck U.S. Alpine Championships (with slalom at Sugar Bowl). Its alpine and freestyle athletes have included 2006 Olympic giant slalom champion Julia Mancuso and 1990 combined alpine world champion Tamara McKinney plus 1998 Olympic moguls champion Jonny Moseley and '02 Olympic moguls silver medalist Shannon Bahrke.

"The American ski industry and the U.S. Ski Team, have lost a great friend, a man of vision to match the mountain he developed," said USSA President and CEO Bill Marolt. "By bringing the Olympics back to the United States for the first time after the war - and in nearly three decades, Alex Cushing signaled that the U.S. ski industry was about to assume its rightful place in the front ranks of skiing. It no longer was a European sport.

"I think we all had a special feeling at the end of the 2002 Olympic season when we were able to hold the U.S. championships at Squaw Valley. Alex always ran Squaw as a gold-medal operation."

He is survived by his widow and three daughters. A public memorial service will be held at a time to be determined, his family said.

This article was originally posted at the US Ski Team's website at www.usskiteam.com.

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