Born in the Tunisian capital of Tunis on 18 January 1933, Jean Vuarnet was still an infant when he moved with his family to the ski resort of Morzine in the French Alps. Later, as a law student in Grenoble, he developed into a top-class skier, eventually earning a place in the national team and revealing his rich promise at the highest level by winning downhill bronze at the 1958 FIS World Championships in Bad Gastein (AUT).

Norway had won six of the seven Nordic combined titles contested since the inaugural Olympic Winter Games in Chamonix in 1924. Its period of domination had been broken only once, when Finland’s Heikki Hasu won gold at St Moritz 1948.

Alexander Cushing, a landowner in Squaw Valley – an uninhabited valley overlooking Lake Tahoe and perched 1,900 metres above sea level in California’s Sierra Nevada and 300 kilometres east of San Francisco – dreamed of transforming the place into a world-class winter sports destination. His vision began to take shape when he built a lodge and then a ski lift in the middle of what was still an untamed landscape.