If Steve won, Phil also won

They are born 63 years ago today, on May 10, 1967, and will be the most successful pair of twins in ski racing: the unforgettable Phil and Steve Mahre of the US state of Washington.

Phil and Steve Mahre were distinctive in their success and distinctive in appearance. Although they are not identical twins, they are like one egg to another. In the photos of the early eighties they are difficult to distinguish, even if you see them together. Steve Mahre’s hair is slightly thinner and his face a little more edgy.

The similarity cost Mahres a victory in the World Cup. The US Slalom Coach USA Tom Kelly wasn’t always sure of his case and he used to give the shots with the starting numbers to just one of the two. This was the case before the slalom in Parpan on January 16, 1984. Steve Mahre, in turn, mixed the numbers and kept the wrong one. The jury noted the error after the first race. The twins were allowed to run the second race before the jury disqualified them with a heavy heart. Steve Mahre would have won. The victory came from Marc Girardelli, who did not like it. Later he said he would have preferred to finish second.

Even without the lost victory, the cufflinks record is fabulous. Steve won nine World Cup races, six of them in slalom. In 1982 he became world champion of the combination. There was also Olympic silver in the 1984 slalom. Phil was one of the dominant figures of the time. Since 1981, 27 career wins led to three successive World Cup wins overall. After the Olympic slaloms in 1980, he was silver (only Ingemar Stenmark was faster) and gold in 1984, he was world champion in 1980 in combination and was awarded seven small crystal balls.

After the mishap the great triumph

A month and three days after the Lenzerheide accident, Phil and Steve Mahre experienced their greatest triumph: gold and silver at the Olympic Slalom in Sarajevo. The fact that the first two were so similar in an Olympic winter sports discipline was only seen in Turin in 2006. But Philipp and Simon Schoch were snowboarders and not twins.

At the competition in Sarajevo, in which Pirmin Zurbriggen, Joël Gaspoz and Olympic giant slalom champion Max Julen retired early, Steve Mahre was ahead of the first race. Phil was only third, seven tenths behind. However, he managed the second race extremely well, while Swede Jonas Nilsson carved and fell from second to fourth place. Steve made mistakes at the bottom and finally lost 21 hundredths to his brother. Phil had become a father for the second time an hour before the race began. The good news from home only came when he was determined as the Olympic champion.

A synchronized life

After the 1983/84 season, Phil and Steve Mahre ended their careers at the age of under 27. At an age when Didier Cuche only had one of his 21 World Cup victories in the dry.

The twins have spent their entire lives together. After their sports career, they became successful business partners. In Keystone, Colorado, they established the “Mahre Training Center”, which continue today in Deer Valley, Utah. The triumphs in sport had always been heard by both. “If Steve won, so do I,” Phil once said.

The Tlalka twins in the shade of Mahres

As successful twins on two slats, Phil and Steve Mahre were and are second to none. Polish slalom runners Malgorzata and Dorota Tlalka added a victory and an additional twelve podium places at the World Cup in the 1980s. David Zwilling, a strong Austrian off-roader in the 1970s, was the only name.

The scissors open quickly if you’re not looking for cufflinks, but simple siblings. Swiss-Ski only had successful siblings at various times in the World Cup. Jean-Daniel and Michel Dätwyler, René and Martin Berthod, Heidi and Pirmin Zurbriggen, Martin and Marco Hangl, Dominique, Michelle and Marc Gisin, Mauro and Gino Caviezel and others.

Flood of brothers in the United States and Spain

The Cochran brothers from the US state of Vermont set a record. At the 1972 Olympics in Sapporo, Marilyn, Barbara, Lindy and Bob competed. Barbara won the gold in slalom.

The ski races in Spain are still defined today by brothers Francisco, Juan Manuel, Luis, Dolores and Blanca Fernández-Ochoa. The best known were Francisco (“Paquito”) and Blanca. In 1972 she became a sensational Olympic slalom gold medalist, 20 years later she also won Olympic bronze in slalom in Albertville. Francisco was 14 years older than Blanca. They both died at the age of just 56.