Esmé Mackinnon (2 December 1913 – 9 July 1999), known as Muffie, was a British

alpine skier Alpine skiing, or downhill skiing, is the pastime of sliding down snow-covered slopes on skis with fixed-heel bindings, unlike other types of skiing ( cross-country, Telemark, or ski jumping), which use skis with free-heel bindings. Whether for ...

from

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

, remembered as the first female

FIS FIS or fis may refer to: Science and technology * '' Fis'', an ''E. Coli'' gene * Fis phenomenon, a phenomenon in linguistics * F♯ (musical note) * Flight information service, an air traffic control service * Frame Information Structure, a Se ...

World Champion A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game, ...

in both

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 ...

and

slalom To slalom is to zigzag between obstacles. It may refer to: Sports ;Alpine skiing and/or snowboarding * Slalom skiing, an alpine skiing and alpine snowboarding discipline * Giant slalom, an alpine skiing and alpine snowboarding discipline * Super-G ...

. She was a member of the

Ladies' Ski Club The Ladies' Ski Club was founded in 1923, at the suggestion of Arnold Lunn, by Doreen Elliott, Mrs Duncan Harvey and Lunn's wife, (Lady) Mabel Lunn. It was the first club for women who wanted to ski. History The Ladies' Ski Club (LSC) was founded i ...

which was the first skiing club for women.History of the Ladies Ski Club
, Ladies Ski Club, 1 May 2017 The editors of ''Ski'' magazine called Mackinnon and fellow British skier

Audrey Sale-Barker file:Audrey Sale-Barker 1932.jpg, Flying in 1932 Audrey Florice Durell "Wendy" Drummond Sale-Barker

"probably the first women who could really be called racers." Sir

Arnold Lunn Sir Arnold Henry Moore Lunn (18 April 1888 – 2 June 1974) was a skier, mountaineer and writer. He was knighted for "services to British Skiing and Anglo-Swiss relations" in 1952. His father was a lay Methodist minister, but Lunn was an agn ...

wrote that she "had the most remarkable record of any lady racer." In addition to her world championships, Mackinnon won the slalom and combined titles at the prestigious

Arlberg-Kandahar The Arlberg-Kandahar race (often abbreviated A-K or AK) is an annual alpine skiing event. The first edition of the race was held in 1928 in St. Anton, in the Arlberg district of Austria. The location originally alternated between St. Anton and M� ...

races in March 1933, in

Mürren Mürren is a traditional Walser mountain village in the Bernese Highlands of Switzerland, at an elevation of above sea level and it cannot be reached by public road. It is also one of the popular tourist spots in Switzerland, and summer and wi ...

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

. After her skiing success, she married one L. M. Murphy.

1931 World Championships

At the age of 17, Mackinnon received two gold medals at the 1931 World Championships in

, winning both the slalom and the downhill.Official results for the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships
– ''FIS-ski.com'' (Retrieved on 20 November 2008) The races were held in deep, soft snow conditions that presented no problem for Mackinnon. Mackinnon also won a third, unofficial race at the 1931 Championships, from Grütschalp to

Lauterbrunnen , neighboring_municipalities= Aeschi bei Spiez, Blatten (Lötschen) (VS), Fieschertal (VS), Grindelwald, Gündlischwand, Kandersteg, Lütschental, Reichenbach im Kandertal, Saxeten, Wilderswil , twintowns = } Lauterbrunnen is a village and M ...

. As Mackinnon approached the finish in Lauterbrunnen, she encountered a funeral procession passing by and stopped to wait. The timekeeper stopped the clock and then restarted it when she resumed her run. Some sources maintain that Mackinnon did this out of respect for the departed. According to Lunn's first-hand account, though, Mackinnon stopped out of necessity: :An incident unique in ski-ing history occurred at the finish. The finishing posts had been placed just outside the Lauterbrunnen station. Shortly before Miss Mackinnon appeared, a funeral procession emerged from the station and passed between Miss Mackinnon and the finishing posts. Miss Mackinnon naturally stopped, and her time was taken to the point where she stopped, and from the point where she stopped till she had passed through the finishing posts. She lost, of course, a few seconds for she had to start again on the level instead of being carried through the posts by her impetus. The Austrians put in a protest, alleging that the time that the funeral procession had taken to pass should be added to her time. This struck us as rather odd for the object of a race is surely to prove that you have skied faster than your rivals, and not that you are entitled to a prize as the result of the opportune intervention of a funeral procession. (p. 79) In any case, the Austrian protest was dismissed and Mackinnon was named the winner. Her final time was 10 minutes, 4.4 seconds.Inferno Mürren
E. A. Sautter, F. Stäger & K. Huggler, "The Inferno Races, 1928-1993" (Retrieved on 1 January 2011)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mackinnon, Esme 1913 births 1999 deaths Sportspeople from Edinburgh Scottish female alpine skiers