In Brief : Duke Warned of Peril, Skier Says

A former Olympic gold medal skier who was with Spanish Duke Alfonso de Borbon when he was killed Monday said he warned the duke about the cable that claimed his life.

“I told him that he must be careful, that they were letting down the cable,” said Toni Sailer, the Austrian skier who won three gold medals in the 1956 Winter Olympics. “But he just went on.”

In one of his first extended interviews since De Borbon, the 52-year-old Duke of Cadiz, was killed, Sailer told the Denver Post about the last seconds before the duke’s death.

Sailer said he was skiing the men’s downhill course Monday with his wife, Gaby, and De Borbon.

“We had been side-slipping down the last face before the finish,” he recalled. “We stopped maybe 30 meters from the finish and I saw the cable. I said that we must be careful and he replied, ‘Yes.’

“At that moment, I was thinking that this whole thing was crazy, that other skiers might be coming down to the finish. So I looked up the hill to see and at that moment De Borbon suddenly skied down.”

He said the accident happened so quickly that Sailer had no time to shout a warning.

“He (De Borbon) was a very strong skier, and he was skiing down the steep face very relaxed, then he hit the cable,” Sailer said.