Biography

Call 1.800.966.1380 to contact Phil Mahre booking agent, publicist, manager, pr firm, representative and management company for booking Phil Mahre speaker appearances, autograph signing, endorsement deals or hiring Phil Mahre as a keynote speaker for your next event. Find Phil Mahre official website information, speaker fees, booking fees, costs and schedule. Olympic gold medalist, Phil Mahre, was born on May 10, 1957 in Yakima, Washington. Phil Mahre is a former alpine ski racer, widely regarded as one of the greatest American skiers of all time. His total of 27 World Cup race wins is second among American skiers, behind only Bode Miller.

Phil Mahre and his twin brother Steve (four minutes younger) were both world class ski racers, competing on the World Cup circuit from 1976-84. Starting with the 1978 season, Phil finished in the top three in the World Cup overall standings for six consecutive seasons, winning the title in the final three (1981-83).

Despite their very similar appearance and according to the delivering physician, the Mahre twins are fraternal rather than identical twins. Phil, Steve, and their seven siblings literally grew up at a ski area; in 1964, their father Dave became the mountain manager for the White Pass ski area, 50 miles (80 km) west of Yakima on US-12, where they moved into a home near the base of the lifts.

By the age of 12, the Mahre twins future was so promising that ski manufacturers sent them free skis, and the next year Rossignol tried to sign them to a career-long contract to use their skis, which their father declined. Eventually they would use skis made by an American company, K2, throughout their career. K2 was located on Vashon Island, just west of Seattle, a few hours northwest of White Pass. The Mahre twins would work extensively with the company throughout their careers, developing custom race skis ideally suited to their needs.

Phil Mahre earned a spot on the U.S. Ski Team in early 1973 at age 15. He was selected to the "A' team following the 1975 and made his World Cup debut in December. Two months later he competed at the 1976 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria, taking fifth in the giant slalom at age 18. He finished the 1976 World Cup season in 14th place in the overall standings. He won his first World Cup race the next season, a giant slalom at Val d'Isère, France in December 1976. He followed it up with a slalom win in March at Sun Valley, defeating the man who would become his fiercest rival, the legendary Swede Ingemar Stenmark, with brother Steve taking third. Phil finished ninth in the overall standings for 1977.

The following season would establish Phil Mahre as one of the best ski racers in the world. In 1978 he placed second in the overall standings, followed by third in 1979. At the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, he took the silver in the slalom behind Stenmark, along with the unofficial Olympic combined title (official as a concurrent World Championship title). He would once again finish third in the overall World Cup standings for 1980, while winning the first of four consecutive discipline titles in the combined.

Phil's career reached its zenith over the next three seasons. He won the most prestigious title in alpine skiing, the overall World Cup title, three consecutive years from 1981-83. He narrowly edged Ingemar Stenmark, who had previously won three consecutive overall titles from 1976-78, by only 6 points to capture his first title in 1981. Mahre's finest year was 1982 when he took the event titles in the giant slalom and slalom, as well as winning the overall title. Mahre had eight wins and 20 podium finishes, and his 309 points were well ahead of Stenmark's 211. Twin brother Steve finished third overall at 183 points, and also won the World Championship in the giant slalom at Schladming. In 1983 Phil would once again beat Stenmark by a large margin for the overall title, along with taking a second straight giant slalom title.

Only two other Americans have won the World Cup overall title: Tamara McKinney in 1983 and Bode Miller in 2005. When McKinney won the women's title in 1983, it marked the only year that both World Cup overall titles have been won by Americans.

At the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, Phil Mahre again medaled in the slalom, this time taking the gold while Steve won the silver for a Mahre twin 1-2 sweep. Steve had led the first of two runs, skiing flawlessly and building a large half-second lead over Swede Jonas Nilsson with Phil in third place another two-tenths back. Phil skied a fine second run to grab the lead, then Nilsson skied next and faltered, dropping out of the medals. Steve skied down last needing only a solid run to take the gold, but a series of mistakes dropped him into second place, and so Phil became the Olympic champion. Meanwhile, unknown to the racers, Phil's wife Holly had given birth to a son an hour before the race started. Phil did not find out about it until a TV interview after the race.

The Mahres won two of the five alpine skiing medals taken by Americans, all from the Northwest. Portland's Bill Johnson (downhill) and Seattle's Debbie Armstrong (giant slalom) also won gold, and Christin Cooper of Sun Valley took the silver behind Armstrong for an American 1-2 finish in the women's giant slalom.

The Mahre twins raced a limited World Cup schedule during the 1984 season, and retired from the circuit in March at age 26. Phil ended his career with 27 World Cup race victories, at the time second only to Stenmark's 79 wins among men's racers (he would end his career in 1989 with 86 wins), while Steve finished with 9 wins.

In 1985, Phil Mahre and his brother released their book No Hill Too Fast, which chronicles their childhood and World Cup careers, and includes a series of instructional sections titled "How to Ski the Mahre Way". That same year the twins established the Mahre Training Center in Deer Valley, Utah, and continue to run it to this day. The twins attended the Bob Boundarant School of Driving in the fall of 1988 and began competing in auto racing. They are currently racing in the Grand American Road Racing Association Koni Challenge series, in the Grand Sport class.

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