Jeremy Palmer-Tomkinson

Jeremy Palmer-Tomkinson came from a family well known for producing top-class Olympic skiers of whom it was said, “could ski before they could walk”. Jeremy´s father James competed at the 1936 and 1948 Winter Games while Jeremy´s older brother Charles represented Great Britain in 1964. Jeremy would out-do them both by competing at the four Winter Olympics between 1968-80. Another older brother, Christopher, was a British champion like his siblings, and in 1962 Christopher and Charles were first and second respectively in the British championship. Their sister Sarah was also an excellent skier, but did not have her brothers´ competitive nature.

Jeremy won the first of three British titles at Val d’Isère in 1965 and at his first Olympics at Grenoble in 1968 was, like his father 20 years earlier, captain of the British Alpine skiing team. He also had the honour of being the Flagbearer at the opening ceremony at the 1980 Lake Placid Games. Although he competed in four Games, it was only in 1968 that he took part in skiing events. The other three occasions saw him compete on the luge (singles and doubles), which he took up seriously in the winter of 1971/72.

Palmer-Tomkinson was invited to train with the French national team in the Winter of 1966/67. At the World Alpine Ski Championships in Chile earlier in the season, he came close to eliminating Jean-Claude Killy from the slalom, which would have dented the famed Olympian´s chance of winning the overall world title. At the half-way stage Palmer-Tomkinson was ahead of Killy. Palmer-Tomkinson was a ski stunt man in the James Bond film “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”.