The history of international ski racing in Adelboden is intrinsically connected with their founder, Dr. Fred Rubi, being the downhill and combined winner at the 1950 Lauberhorn event as well as being for many years the tourism director of Adelboden. 1954 was a key year for the 28-year old ski racer come economist and this saw him train exceptionally hard for the world championships in Sweden. He had a score to settle as two years previous he had lost the Olympic bronze medal to Austria’s Pravda in Oslo. Unfortunately while training Rubi was one of the first to ski through the impressively steep rock slopes. The fall he sustained should have been a mild one except for the placement of the rock wall that was used to prevent racers from tumbling further downhill into the forest. Rubi hit his head and seriously damaged his back. This meant the end to his dreams of winning a medal at the World Championships and effectively, his skiing sports career was over. At the same time however he was elected on to the Adelboden Tourism Board as director. With his racing background he enthusiastically set about organising large ski-racers which were already the tradition in Adelboden. Thanks to Rubi’s energy and his many contacts in the sporting industry success did not take long. As a skilled organiser Fred Rubi was well known for his unique blend of technical authority and dry humour. This was ever present at the director meetings leading up to the major events and over the 40 years he was involved until 1994, helped shape Adelboden into becoming the international venue for ski racing it is today.