The Iceman cometh again – after 71 years

Rupert Lycett Green first did the Cresta Run in 1951, aged 13. He did

it

Again

this

winter, aged 84 – a record gap between runs

Aged 13, I came second in the Baron Oertzen Handicap on the Cresta Run in 1951.

I was taken to St Moritz, Switzerland, by my stepfather, Ralph, Lord Grimthorpe, a famous Cresta rider himself. I had hurt my ankle in a skiing fall but could still run and jump onto a toboggan.

Riding the Cresta is sliding down an iced toboggan run at more than 70mph, lying on your tummy with your face a couple of inches from the ice, on what looks like a large tea tray on runners.

In fact, the toboggan – or ‘skeleton’ –under you is a steel structure on which much thought, money and effort have been expended over the years to get its rider to the Run’s finish in the fastestpossible time.

The skeleton’s rounded runners are slightly bowed for speed on the straights, and sharpened into knives towards the back to help you track round banked corners in the smoothest possible parabola without slipping sideways.

Whatever skill I had was honed on the snowy slopes of the Howardian Hills in Yorkshire. Bumping and bouncing down over a rabbit-warrened hill, I always preferred to lie head first, as elbows and feet could be stuck out to avoid my tipping over.

In 1888, on the Cresta Run, Captain Bertie Dwyer, a Cresta rider since childhood, crossed the finishing line at about 75mph, making him the fastest self-propelled man on the planet. He subsequently won the blue ribbon of the Cresta, the Grand National, three times.

Soon the success of the Run, handbuilt in its own narrow valley, with water from the valley’s stream sprayed onto the snow turning the surface into ice overnight, increasingly drew intrepid visitors from England. Rich Americans followed, with the occasional Italian aristocrat and Swiss hotelier making up the numbers.

Then, as Englishmen do, they formed a club with all the accoutrements that can baffle other nations. The St Moritz Tobogganing Club is still thriving, having undergone a rocky period after the Second World War, when English travellers were allowed to take only £50 with them – later reduced to £25.

The Services Championship then came to the rescue, providing enough riders with their expenses paid for by the Army, Navy and Air Force. They all regarded the Cresta as a form of adventure training, turning a blind eye towards St Moritz downtime adventures.

The Club became an all-male show for 90 years until 2020, having banned lady riders on ‘health’ grounds, not unconnected with a certain Mrs Bott beating Mr Bott in a championship race, the Curzon Cup.

However, Cresta racing is now truly open again, with one-third of the services riders being female. A Ladies Championship race commemorates a brilliant rider of yore, Lorna Robertson, who in her day equalled the best and beat the rest.

The language of the St Moritz Tobogganing Club is, of course, English. The club has the enormous benefit of truly existing only from late December to early March, which means that the fun mixed with a touch of danger is concentrated into ten weeks.

Away from the Run, the Sunny Bar in the magnificent Kulm Hotel is the Cresta’s home from home, galvanised by super-Secretary Gary Lowe. Cups are presented, winners are kissed and toasted with English champagne, friendships renewed for another season.

Festivities end in the early hours in the nearby Dracula nightclub, founded by the inimitable Gunter Sachs (19322011), photographer and former husband of Brigitte Bardot.

A strange rule for an ice run with corners is that the toboggans must have no steering mechanism. This lack is usually discovered by innocent novices who think that they will get round Shuttlecock Corner by thought process alone.

I went out of the run there into the straw four times in a row. Then I worked out that shifting my weight back over the knives and gently pushing the front of the toboggan downwards meant that I could avoid the Shuttlecock straw and reach the finishing line.

A Cresta victory is celebrated by all the riders who took part in the race pretending to be a firework, jumping up and down crying out ‘Boom!’ and ‘Ssh!’

For years, the firework theme was transferred on to the actual Run by a splendid eccentric, Adolf Haeberli. He attached rockets all over his body and lit them before setting off on his toboggan on the last run of the season in a cloud of orange smoke, punctuated by explosions as one rocket after another sped him on his way.

When the great Adolf retired, a distinguished air vice-marshal took on the fiery mantle. Unfortunately, unbalanced by fireworks, he crashed out of the Run and lay comatose for a while in what looked like a pool of blood. Although he was quite badly hurt, at least the blood turned out to be the contents of an unexploded smoke bomb.

Cresta riders divide into the modernists and the traditionalists. The former, dressed in skin-tight – usually black – latex, wander around looking like pensive aliens and win all the championship races.

The traditionalists dress like King George V deerstalking in Scotland, mutter about toboggans that steer and seem mostly unaware that time has passed since Bertie Dwyer reigned supreme.

When the money is down in one of the Auction Handicaps, yesterday’s Old Fogey can emerge, looking slightly embarrassed, in shiny latex, make a surprisingly athletic start before flinging himself on his toboggan and sliding down the Run a second and a half faster, to triumph in the race and carry off the money on behalf of himself and his backers – often the aforementioned latexeteers.

Mastery of the Cresta Run is very rare. When achieved by the best riders, it may last only a year or two. The Run is built by hand, and though the corners and straights all have the same names each year, every corner is subtly different every season.

The greatest riders include Italian Nino Bibbia, a brilliant all-round sportsman who represented his country in three winter sports. Then there was Billy Fiske, the first American to die in the Second World War, flying in the Battle of Britain, who held all the records and never went out at Shuttlecock Corner.

Franco Gansser, the most stylish champion, looked as if he could drink a cup of tea while winning Grand Nationals. Clifton Wrottesley, an Irish peer, was peerless in the best races for a decade or more. And champion James Sunley rides with the steeliest determination when the chips are down.

They have all mastered the Icy Lady of St Moritz for a time.

For the rest of us, if you haven’t ridden before, 200 Swiss francs will get you six rides. After a little instruction, off you go, trying to stick your toe rakes into the ice to slow your rate of acceleration.

On the first run down, you are a tourist. On the second run, you are a piece of baggage. On the third, steering with your feet becomes an option. By the sixth, either you retire gracefully or you’re hooked.

Cresta riding needn’t become an obsession. Yet still I ponder, as I write of my ‘last’ ride (a world record 71 years after my first), in December 2022’s Lowe Portago race, ‘Dash it! If I had taken two more steps in my start, I could have beaten my previous best.’

I’m still hooked.