LUXURY LIVING SPORT u
BORN IN A BLIZZARD
It had snowed all night and you would never have guessed there was a polo field beneath all that snow says Reto Gaudenzi, reminiscing about that Saturday, 26 of January 1985. For two years, he had worked tirelessly to make the first polo tournament on snow happen. He had convinced innovators, won over sceptics and ignored notorious grousers and now, his baby was about to be buried under a pile of snow.
The snow had fallen hard and there was far too much for it to be compressed the town’ s large and heavy snow blowers would simply have cracked through the ice on the lake, but Reto Gaudenzi would not let himself become disheartened and after calling on his fellow townsfolk by seven o’ clock, two dozen locals had arrived to help clear the field with their small private snow-blowers. After six hours of strenuous effort the volunteers had finally managed to clear a field measuring a respectable 40 by 80 meters— and the world premiere of snow polo could begin.
WHERE ELSE BUT IN ST. MORITZ?
The idea of snow polo was born some two years previously. Hanspeter Danuser, St. Moritz’ s legendary tourism director, had quizzed Reto Gaudenzi on whether it would in fact be possible to play polo on snow. At first glance, there appeared to be no reason why it could not be done. So, Danuser went ahead and announced that St. Moritz would be holding the world’ s first snow polo tournament.
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