10 Facts About Lucile Wheeler

Lucile Wheeler was born on January 14,1935 and is a former alpine ski racer from Canada.

Lucile Wheeler was a double world champion in 1958, the first North American to win a world title in the downhill event.

Lucile Wheeler's family was instrumental in promoting the sport of skiing and her grandfather George Wheeler built the famous Gray Rocks ski centre at Mont-Tremblant, Quebec.

Lucile Wheeler had moved to Quebec from Chazy, New York in the late nineteenth century, hoping to make it rich in the lumber business, but was wiped out by a forest fire.

Lucile Wheeler won the Canadian junior ski championship in 1947 at age 12 and at 14 was selected to compete for Canada at the World Championships in 1950 in Aspen, Colorado, the first major alpine event held outside of Europe.

Lucile Wheeler followed this with a spectacular performance at the 1958 World Championships in Bad Gastein, Austria, where she won both the downhill and the giant slalom and took silver in the combined.

Lucile Wheeler's achievements were instrumental in increasing the popularity of the sport both nationwide and in her native Quebec where what was once a remote destination in the Laurentian mountains for only a limited few became a thriving ski area with an abundance of quality facilities that attracts hundreds of thousands of skiers every winter.

In June 1960, Lucile Wheeler married Kaye Vaughan, former player with the Ottawa Rough Riders and member of the Canadian Football League Hall of Fame.

Lucile Wheeler was voted the Lou Marsh Trophy as Canada's most outstanding athlete of 1958 and was inducted into the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame.

South of the border, Lucile Wheeler was inducted into the US Ski Hall of Fame in 1976.