Jean Vuarnet, a Downhill Skiing Innovator, Dies at 83

Jean Vuarnet, a Frenchman who won the gold medal in downhill skiing at the 1960 Winter Olympics using an innovative approach to aerodynamics and decades later endured the deaths of his wife and his youngest son in a doomsday cult’s murder-suicide ritual, died on Monday in Sallanches, France. He was 83.

The cause was a stroke, the French National Olympic and Sports Committee announced.

Vuarnet was 27 when he arrived in Squaw Valley, Calif., for the 1960 Games. He was not France’s best hope for a medal, but he was a student of skiing technique and had helped write several books on the subject. In search of extra speed, he raced the 10,154-foot course in an unprecedented way — with his knees…