MÜRREN, Switzerland — On a sun-drenched hill overlooking the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau peaks, 1,850 ski racers prepared Saturday to compete in the Inferno, one of the world's oldest and longest downhill races. As they shuffled through the start house perched at 9,720 feet in the Bernese Oberland, a bottle of homemade schnapps hung in the entryway, a traditional elixir to quell prerace jitters.
These were not professional skiers, but amateurs taking part in the 70th edition of the Inferno downhill race, a competition first held in 1928. Organized by Sir Arnold Lunn of Britain, widely considered the father of alpine ski racing and responsible for introducing slalom and downhill to the Olympics in 1936, the inaugural Inferno attracted only 12 competitors. Those racers spent the night in a hut on the Schilthorn, the mountain where the race has taken place. When the sun came up, the racers discovered a course so treacherous they likened it to a fixture in hell — thus anointing the race the Inferno.
Today, the Inferno is the largest amateur ski race in the world, with 1,642 men and 208 women from 22 countries participating. Another 1,500 were on the waiting list. Race registration opens in August and sells out in a week.
"It's a people's race: anyone can start, provided you get a start number," said Stephen Lunn, a grandson of Sir Arnold. He has raced the Inferno more than 20 times. His father, Peter, raced into his 90s.
On Friday night, racers, spectators and locals — many wearing devil masks — walked in a candlelit procession through Mürren's car-free streets. Men with cowbells slung around their waists and a traditional Swiss band led the parade, which wound through the village and culminated at the sports center with the ceremonial burning of a devil effigy. An offering to the ski-racing gods, the ritual is thought to bring the racers good luck.
Saturday morning broke clear and cold. In the start house, the Lycra-clad racers on skinny skis almost 7 feet long sidled up to the starting gate, which looked out at the three iconic peaks across the valley. Some competitors nipped from the bottle of schnapps, called Infernogeist, or Inferno ghost, an aperitif meant to allay racers' fears before they start down the perilous track.
The Mürren native Rene Jaun has been the race's start chief and master schnapps-maker for the past 13 years, a position he — as the eldest son in his family — inherited from his father, who oversaw the start house — and the Infernogeist concoction — for 35 years.
Today, Jaun runs the start house with the help of his two brothers.
"It is a family tradition," he said. "I am very proud I was able to get this job from my father."
Jaun's father continues to help brew the race-day schnapps. The recipe changes from year to year and is a closely guarded secret.
Gone are the days when there was a mass start. Now, with so many competitors and subsequent safety concerns, racers start individually, separated by 12-second intervals. The fastest racers — determined by previous Inferno results — start in the top 300 positions, beginning at 8:50 a.m. Newcomers, slower racers and less serious competitors fill out the remaining slots. The last competitors finish at about 4 p.m.
While the field for the race has grown, the course remains relatively unchanged.
The start has been lowered about 600 feet from its original position at the top of the Schilthorn and now sits in the shadow of the Piz Gloria, the rotating restaurant featured in the 1969 James Bond movie "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." The lower leg of the race, from Mürren to Lauterbrunnen, is now a prepared track, as opposed to the ungroomed, pick-your-own-way-down final leg of Sir Arnold Lunn's day.
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