Marielle Goitschel in the context of "Speed skiing"

The 1964 Winter Olympics, officially known as the IX Olympic Winter Games (German: IX. Olympische Winterspiele) and commonly known as Innsbruck 1964 (Austro-Bavarian: Innschbruck 1964), were a winter multi-sport event which was celebrated in Innsbruck, Austria, from January 29 to February 9, 1964. The city was already an Olympic candidate, unsuccessfully bidding to host the 1960 Games. Innsbruck won the 1964 Games bid, defeating the cities of Calgary in Canada and Lahti in Finland. The sports venues, many of which were built for the Games, were located within a radius of 20 km (12 mi) around Innsbruck. The Games included 1,091 athletes from 36 nations, which was a record for the Winter Games at the time. Athletes participated in six sports and ten disciplines which bring together a total of thirty-four official events, seven more than the 1960 Winter Olympic Games. The luge made its debut on the Olympic program. Three Asian nations made their Winter Games debut: North Korea, India and Mongolia.

The Soviet Union broke the record for the most gold and overall medals at a single Winter Olympics, with eleven and twenty five respectively, and finished first in the medal table. The USSR was followed by Austria, the host country, which won twelve medals, four of which were gold. Soviet athletes Lidia Skoblikova won all four women's races of speed skating and Klavdiya Boyarskikh won all three events of cross-country skiing. The Swedish cross-country skier Sixten Jernberg, a three-time medalist at these Games, became the first athlete to collect nine medals at the Winter Games. In alpine skiing, the French sisters Christine and Marielle Goitschel each obtained a gold and a silver medal. Before the Games, the Austrian army was mobilized to deal with the lack of snow. They brought thousands of cubic meters of it from Brenner Pass, close to the Italian border. The Olympic Winter Games was held for a second time at Innsbruck in 1976.

Speed skiing was a demonstration sport at the 1992 Winter Olympics. The venue was in Les Arcs, about 60 km from the host city, Albertville. Michael Prufer, a 31-year-old medical doctor from Savoie, improved his own 1988 world record by 5.558 km/h. Philippe Goitschel, the nephew of French ski champion Marielle Goitschel, was second and the American Jeffrey Hamilton was third. The competition was, however, marred by the death of Nicolas Bochatay from Switzerland, who died while free skiing the morning of the finals.

Tarja Mulari from Finland achieved a top speed of 219.245 kilometres per hour (136.233 mph), breaking the previous women's world record of 214.723 km/h (133.423 mph).

Christine Béranger-Goitschel (born 9 June 1944) is a former French alpine skier. She is the elder sister of fellow champion skier Marielle Goitschel and the aunt of the former speed skier Philippe Goitschel. Her sister Patricia was a national junior champion in the slalom in 1964.

After great success in the 1964 Winter Olympics, she and her sister Marielle were considered the world's best female skiers. However, Goitschel fractured an ankle in 1966, and retired from her sporting career after the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble, France.

Philippe Goitschel (born 1962) is a French skier. He won a silver medal in speed skiing, a demonstration sport at the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France.

He is the nephew of champion skiers of the 1960s, Christine and Marielle Goitschel, sisters of his mother Patricia.

The 1st World Cup races began in early January in West Germany and concluded in late March in the United States. Jean-Claude Killy of France dominated the men's competition, winning each of the three disciplines and the overall title. Nancy Greene of Canada edged out Marielle Goitschel of France for the women's overall title, her first of two consecutive titles, defending successfully in 1968.

Killy's 12 race wins for the season (amazingly, out of only 17 races during the season) stood as the record for wins in a season by a skier (male or female) until Ingemar Stenmark won 13 races in 1978-79.