Dave Irwin (born July 12, 1954)
is a former
alpine ski racer who represented Canada at two Winter
Olympic
Olympic or Olympics may refer to
Sports
Competitions
* Olympic Games, international multi-sport event held since 1896
** Summer Olympic Games
** Winter Olympic Games
* Ancient Olympic Games, ancient multi-sport event held in Olympia, Greece b ...
Games and won a
World Cup
A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...
downhill. He was one of the "
Crazy Canucks
The Crazy Canucks was the nickname for a group of World Cup alpine ski racers from Canada who rose to prominence in the 1970s and 1980s. Jungle Jim Hunter, Dave Irwin, Dave Murray, Steve Podborski, and Ken Read earned themselves a reputatio ...
", a group of Canadian downhill racers who rose to prominence on the World Cup circuit in the late 1970s. He lives in
Canmore,
Alberta
Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...
, near the
Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico ...
.
Biography
Dave Irwin was born in
Thunder Bay
Thunder Bay is a city in and the seat of Thunder Bay District, Ontario, Canada. It is the most populous municipality in Northwestern Ontario and the second most populous (after Greater Sudbury) municipality in Northern Ontario; its population i ...
,
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...
, Canada where he learned to ski at the age of three at his father's ski resort. By the age of 17, Irwin had been selected to be a member of the
Canadian National Ski Team.
Originally picked for his ability as a slalom skier, he successfully switched to downhill when national team coach Scotty Henderson reoriented the squad and the team's resources towards the speed event.
Irwin's first World Cup race was the
downhill
Downhill may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Downhill'' (1927 film), a British film by Alfred Hitchcock
* ''Downhill'' (2014 film), a British comedy directed by James Rouse
* ''Downhill'' (2016 film), a Chilean thriller directed by Patrici ...
at
Schladming, Austria on December 22, 1973 where he placed 14th.
Two years later at Schladming, he won the
downhill event in a time of 2:00.84 beating the second-place finisher,
Klaus Eberhard by almost two seconds. Irwin reached the podium again in 1982 with a third-place finish at the World Cup downhill in
Whistler, B.C. behind winner
Peter Müller, and team mate
Steve Podborski
Stephen Gregory "Steve" Podborski, (born July 25, 1957) is a Canadian former World Cup and Olympic downhill ski racer.
Racing career
Born in Toronto, Ontario, Podborski started skiing at the age of two and a half at Craigleith Ski Club in ...
.
Irwin represented Canada at two
Winter Olympic Games
The Winter Olympic Games (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques d'hiver) is a major international multi-sport event held once every four years for sports practiced on snow and ice. The first Winter Olympic Games, the 1924 Winter Olympics, were h ...
. At the
1976 Winter Olympics
The 1976 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XII Olympic Winter Games (german: XII. Olympische Winterspiele, french: XIIes Jeux olympiques d'hiver) and commonly known as Innsbruck 1976 ( bar, Innschbruck 1976, label= Austro-Bavarian), was a ...
in Innsbruck, Austria, Irwin finished eighth. At the
1980 Winter Olympics
The 1980 Winter Olympics, officially the XIII Olympic Winter Games and also known as Lake Placid 1980, were an international multi-sport event held from February 13 to 24, 1980, in Lake Placid, New York, United States.
Lake Placid was elected ...
in Lake Placid, USA, he placed eleventh.
Traumatic brain injury
Iriwn sustained two severe
concussions during his racing career, once before the 1976, Olympics, and a second concussion before the 1980 Olympics.
The first concussion was sustained on January 10, 1976 at the downhill race in Wengen, Switzerland - two weeks after his sole World Cup win at Schladming
- and resulted in five days in hospital. Less than two weeks later, Irwin was back training with the ski team. Canadian Corner a Section of the
Lauberhorn
The Lauberhorn is a mountain in the Bernese Alps of Switzerland, located between Wengen and Grindelwald, north of the Kleine Scheidegg. Its summit is at an elevation of above sea level.
Lauberhorn ski races
The mountain is best known for the ...
near Wengen in Switzerland. The heavily twisting curve at the left-hand transition to the Alpweg is named after the Crazy Canucks,
Ken Read
Kenneth John Read (born November 6, 1955) is one of the most respected sport leaders in Canada. This World Cup alpine ski racer from Canada was a specialist in the downhill and a two-time Olympian. He won five World Cup races during his ten-yea ...
and Dave Irwin who both fell there in 1976.
Irwin suffered a
traumatic brain injury
A traumatic brain injury (TBI), also known as an intracranial injury, is an injury to the brain caused by an external force. TBI can be classified based on severity (ranging from mild traumatic brain injury TBI/concussionto severe traumatic br ...
on a training run for an Export A Skier-Cross event on March 23, 2001 which put him in a coma for three days.
He recovered slowly from the injury with severe memory loss. He and his fiancée Lynne Harrison later created the Dave Irwin Foundation for Brain Injury. The foundation was dissolved in 2016.
See also
*
Crazy Canucks
The Crazy Canucks was the nickname for a group of World Cup alpine ski racers from Canada who rose to prominence in the 1970s and 1980s. Jungle Jim Hunter, Dave Irwin, Dave Murray, Steve Podborski, and Ken Read earned themselves a reputatio ...
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Irwin, Dave
Canadian male alpine skiers
Alpine skiers at the 1976 Winter Olympics
Alpine skiers at the 1980 Winter Olympics
Olympic alpine skiers for Canada
Sportspeople from Thunder Bay
1954 births
Living people