Molitor

In 1939, at the age of 19, he scored his first-(of six victories)-at his home town race, the Lauberhorn. The same year, he won the downhill at Megève in France, the Arlberg-Kandahar at Mürren and got a bronze medal at the FIS World Ski Championships at Zakopane, Poland. After the war pause, he won the Swiss and the U.S. Alpine Championship (1947) and last but not least the silver and bronze medals at the Olympics of St. Moritz (1948).

 

In 1947, Molitor was the first to export hand-made boots from Europe, in fact 600 pairs to the U.S... By the mid-50s, he sold around 20,000 ski, 5000 climbing and 1200 après-ski boots. As he could not find sufficient shoemakers and sewers in Switzerland, most of his up to 65 employees were Italians. At that time, Molitor also licensed Heschung in France and in the sixties, Byson in Japan. He was the first to offer Boots with inner shoes and invented in 1965 a closure system featuring steel cables tightened by metal buckles. With the rise of plastic boots, the Molitor brand was folded in 1977 into the Raichle ski boot empire. In 2012 “Moli” published the book Lebendige Erinnerungen.