DAVID ISAACSON | Piste off: why SA and Britain will never ski out of the cold at Winter Olympics

Nothing can make us South Africans feel quite so isolated sitting on the tip of the continent as the Winter Olympics (though Bafana Bafana comes pretty close during the Soccer World Cup).

Once again SA has no athletes at the Games, and that really isn’t a major surprise. Britain, of course, does. Going into Beijing 2022 it had won 32 medals, which is 32 more than SA, but it’s way behind the 918 it has managed at the Summer edition.

But despite that, Britannia, like SA, does not rule the ski slopes. And I can tell you why. 

I have been at the cutting edge, back in the summer of 1983/84, when I was fortunate enough to go on a skiing holiday with my family to the Swiss Alps. 

The Isaacson clan on skis could have given the Griswolds a run for their money, as well as a few Brits. 

My late parents both gave skiing a tilt on that trip, and each had one lesson.

My mom spent most of hers lying in the snow, roaring with laughter at her own mishaps. My dad, incredibly, kept his balance after he ploughed into a group of Italians trying to learn the sport. They toppled over like dominoes, while my dad was the only one to remain upright, and each time he tried to offer an apology, burst out laughing.

That was just on the beginners’ slope.

I was unleashed onto the mountains, where the beauty of the sport was abundantly clear — the only sound was the faint whoosh of skis on powdery snow, surrounded by peaks including the Eiger. Blue sky above.

The serenity in our group would occasionally be broken by someone falling and Yours Truly cackling his way past the crumpled heap.

One of our group was a middle-aged gent who might have been related to Eddie the Eagle, a far cry from the expert skiers you see on TV, employing the more advanced technique of parallel turns, where the skis remain parallel to each other. 

Beginners like us mostly used what is called the snow plough, where one creates almost a triangle with the skis and puts more weight on one foot to go in the opposite direction. Lean right, go left. 

But Eddie the Eagle’s distant cousin — I’ll call him Mr Beagle — tended to lean too far forward on the turns. Each time, in mid-manoeuvre, he simply toppled head first into the snow. The funniest part was that he never tried to break his fall with his hands — they stayed at his side as he landed with a thunk, like a cartoon character. It was impossible not to laugh. Every time. 

On another occasion we had to take a ski lift, called the T-bar, which is an upside down T that carries two people, placed behind their backsides. A line attached to the main cable unravels to full length and then starts pulling up the two passengers, who effectively ski uphill, their skis on the snow track.

Mr and Mrs Beagle went up together. As the line went taut and started pulling them, Mrs Beagle fell. Determined not to miss her ride, she managed to hook her elbow on her side of the T and held on, being dragged up the mountain. Mr Beagle, with no semblance of balance in a pair of skis, amazingly stayed upright, despite wobbling like a round-bottomed doll. 

But being dragged up the mountain in this manner is apparently not a great idea, judging by the reaction of our ski instructor, who ran after them (it’s really difficult to run, or even walk, in ski boots) and shouted at Mrs Beagle, now 30-odd metres into her journey, to let go. She obliged and poor Mr Beagle, unable to survive the sudden loss of her weight, collapsed once again into the snow.

Mrs Beagle blamed her husband for their disaster, even though it was her fault, but he didn’t argue, handling the criticism with a stiff upper lip.

The next day found us queuing to catch a chairlift. She turned to him icily and loudly stated: “After yesterday, I’m not going up in the same chair with you!”

Mr Beagle calmly turned to me: “Well, David, I guess it’s you and me.”

Little did he know what he was letting himself in for. I could hold my own on the slopes, but when it came to lifts I resembled Mr Bean. 

This particular chairlift scooped people up, two at a time, off a wooden deck; one simply sat back on the chair and lifted one’s skis off the deck.

Mr Beagle and I were the last of our group to go up. I stood on the right and kept watch for the approaching chair, looking carefully over my right shoulder.

And as it reached us, I suddenly realised I’d forgotten to check for the little hand grip separating the two seats. It caught me on my hip and started pushing me, on my skis, towards a giant net at the end of the wooden platform, placed there, no doubt, to catch idiots like me.

Next thing I felt a hand on my jacket and Mr Beagle, who had got on without any hassle, pulled me into my seat, saving me from the indignity of landing up in the net.

But in doing so, poor Mr Beagle’s one ski struck the wooden platform awkwardly and came off. This was a non-stop lift, but they shut it down briefly to hand Mr Beagle his ski.

And then up the mountain we went, with Mr Beagle holding one ski in his hands. He briefly contemplated trying to clip it onto his ski-less boot, but I pointed out that his luck on the slopes did not suggest this would be a successful venture.

“I hope getting off is easier than getting on,” I commented a little later.

“I’m not sure how I’m going to get off with one ski,” he replied.

I started laughing and, almost embarrassingly, couldn’t stop. Sure enough, it turned out we had to ski off. The chair arrived at a short, gentle slope and I made landfall, pushing myself away from the chair without further mishap.

As I got to the bottom I turned to see Mr Beagle, in a seated position, sliding down on one ski, clutching the other and his two poles in his arms. When he stopped at the bottom he simply toppled over sideways, once again not trying to arrest his fall with his hands.

Mrs Beagle wasted no time: “You see! That’s why I didn’t go up with you. You’re the reason they stopped the lift.”

I honestly did try to explain to her that this actually wasn’t his doing, but I couldn’t because I was laughing too hard. I literally couldn’t breathe.

Britain finally won its first Olympic skiing medal, a bronze, in 2018, and SA is still waiting. Now you know why.