FIS, Chamonix 1924 and the first national federations.

Before FIS: the 1910 commission

FIS's congress history begins in Christiania, as Oslo was then called. Its page for 1910 says the first International Ski Congress met there in February 1910, with 22 delegates from 10 countries, chaired by Karl Roll, president of the Norwegian Ski Association. The congress set out to found an international federation, agree rules for jumping and settle questions about amateur status, and among the delegates was J. Sigfrid Edström, later president of the IOC. It ended by creating the International Ski Commission, whose main task was to set and apply rules for each kind of ski competition. FIS's congress index dates that first congress to 18 February 1910.

The index lists further congresses in 1911 (Stockholm), 1912 (Munich), 1913 (Bern-Interlaken), 1914 (Christiania), 1922 (Stockholm) and 1923 (Prague). A 2016 FIS congress summary, reproduced by the Russian ski association and seen only in a search summary, says the Prague congress approved the principle of founding a federation and left the final decision to the next meeting; that is unconfirmed.

The founding of FIS, 2 February 1924

FIS's page for 1924 says the 8th International Ski Congress met on 2 February 1924 at Chamonix, France, with 36 delegates from 14 countries. It met during an International Winter Sports Week that Olympic history now counts as the first Winter Games. The page records that:

• three draft statutes were on the table, from the commission, from Dr Pierre Minelle of France, and from the Norwegian and Swedish delegations, and the congress unanimously took the Norwegian-Swedish draft as its basis;
• the commission then unanimously turned itself into the International Ski Federation;
• Ivar Holmquist of Sweden was elected the first president, and the abbreviation "FIS" was adopted on his proposal;
• the first statutes required Finland, Norway and Sweden to sit on the Council and the president and secretary general to come from one of those three countries;
• FIS was to invite racers each year to a large international competition, the origin of the World Championships, called "rendez-vous" until 1927 and "the FIS Competitions" from 1929.

Patrick Lang's 2024 history in Skiing History, the International Skiing History Association (ISHA) magazine, gives the same date and place and 14 national associations. On the count of countries, a search summary of FIS's own centenary page described it as naming 15, though the summary listed 14; that page now leads to an error, and this site uses the 14 on FIS's congress page. Lang says the first recognised FIS Nordic World Championships followed in 1925 at Janské Lázně, Czechoslovakia.

Chamonix 1924: the first Winter Games

The Canadian Olympic Committee says the French Olympic Committee decided at a congress in June 1922 to stage an International Sports Week at Chamonix in 1924. It ran from 25 January to 5 February 1924, with 16 events, 16 national Olympic committees and 258 athletes, 247 men and 11 women. The competitions were held under IOC patronage but were not at first called Olympic Games.

When they became Olympic is given two ways. The Canadian Olympic Committee says the IOC amended its charter in May 1925 to hold such an event every four years and recognised Chamonix retroactively as the first Olympic Winter Games; a History.com summary gives the same year. Wikipedia, seen as a search summary, dates the recognition to the IOC's 26th Session on 6 May 1926. No IOC page could be opened to settle it: the IOC's website timed out throughout the research.

The ski events were Nordic only

The ISHA timeline says the skiing at Chamonix was cross-country, ski jumping and Nordic combined; alpine events came later (see alpine skiing and the Olympics). Olympedia, the Olympic historians' database, says Thorleif Haug of Norway won the 50 km on 30 January 1924 in 3:44:32, in a field of 33 entrants from 11 countries in which the eight Nordic finishers took the first eight places, and the 18 km on 2 February in 1:14:31.4, his second gold in three days. A search summary of Olympedia lists him as Nordic combined champion too, with Johan Grøttumsbråten third.

Haug was also awarded the ski jumping bronze. Wikipedia and a Britannica summary say a scoring error was found in 1974, that he was moved to fourth, and that the bronze went to Anders Haugen of the United States. No IOC or Olympedia page confirming the corrected standings was read, so the correction is unconfirmed here.

The national federations

Several national bodies are older than FIS. Their founding dates, with who gives them:

United States, 1905

The Mining Journal of Marquette, Michigan, in a 2013 local history, says Norwegian immigrants founded the Norden Ski Club at Ishpeming in 1887, renamed it the Ishpeming Ski Club in 1901, and that on 21 February 1905 the club president, Carl Tellefsen, announced the new National Ski Association after a meeting of area clubs and became its first president. The ISHA timeline also lists the association's founding at Ishpeming in 1905. A Hall of Fame page on Tellefsen, seen only in a search summary, is reported to add that a club board meeting on 23 January 1905 first suggested the name "Central Union Ski Association"; that is unconfirmed. Search summaries of U.S. Ski & Snowboard's own pages, which could not be opened, say it traces itself to this 1905 body.

The Mining Journal says the club's 1905 tournament is recognised as the first official national championship, though the club once claimed its 1904 event as the first. It also says the association chose Ishpeming for its museum at its 1948 Chicago convention, the building was finished in 1953, and the first four Hall of Fame members were named in 1956; Wikipedia, seen in a summary, gives early 1957 for that first class.

Canada, 1920

Alpine Canada says Canadian ski racing officially began on 20 December 1920, when the Canadian Amateur Ski Association (CASA) was incorporated under a Dominion charter. Alpine Canada says the Canadian body remains affiliated with FIS today; no source read gives the year it joined FIS. Alpine Canada says CASA later became the Canadian Ski Association, in the 1970s, and took the name Canadian Snowsports Association in 2001, and it calls the Montreal Ski Club, established on Mont Royal in 1904, the forerunner of all Canadian ski clubs. The Canadian Ski Museum says H. Percy Douglas called the first meeting of what became CASA in 1920 and was its first president from 1920 to 1930.

CASA's founding date is given three ways. Alpine Canada gives incorporation on 20 December 1920. A history of the Ottawa Ski Club hosted by the Gatineau Valley Historical Society, seen only in a search summary, gives incorporation on 11 December 1920, after a founding dinner meeting in Montreal on 28 February 1920. The West Vancouver Archives, also seen only in a summary, say it was organised in 1921.

Europe

The ISHA timeline also lists the founding of the Ski Club of Great Britain on 12 May 1903 and of the National Ski Federation of Great Britain, set up by that club, in 1964; the 1903 entry is uncited, so both are unconfirmed here.

FIS after Chamonix

Lang (2024) says Marc Hodler was elected FIS president in 1951 and led it until 1998, and that FIS moved into its own headquarters at Oberhofen, Switzerland, in early 1990. FIS's About page says it is still based at Oberhofen am Thunersee. Wikipedia says the English name changed from International Ski Federation to International Ski and Snowboard Federation on 26 May 2022, at the 53rd Congress in Milan, with the acronym unchanged. How FIS is organised and governed today is on FIS and the governing bodies, and its national members on national federations.