Over the last 20 years, gentlemen’s clubs have had to pay at least a token deference to modernity — equal rights, health and safety, inclusiveness. And then there is St Moritz Tobogganing Club, a British club with its own rules. Located in the middle of the Swiss Alps, it makes one uncomplicated demand of its members. Men must slide down a three-quarter-mile run of ice on a toboggan at speeds of up to 80 mph. The run finishes in the tiny hamlet of Cresta, so this happy, if eccentric, sport is called the ‘Cresta Run’.
I am in St Moritz for the second time. Last year I was invited — as a last-minute replacement, I suspect — to join a friend’s army team. We did pretty well and, encouraged by my newly discovered ability to go very very fast without a thought in my head, I decided to return in glory with a team of my own. Convincing people to join me proved harder than I had imagined. With two days to go and still one man short, I made a desperate call to Oleg, a London-based artist I know. He assumed the Cresta Run was some sort of Christian running race through the mountains and looked it up on YouTube. ‘It looks psychotic. Why would I want to do that?’ he asked. After my five-minute monologue about man’s ultimate challenge, he said: ‘Tell me the truth. Why are you calling me up with two days to go?’ ‘Because if you don’t come, my team will be disqualified for not having enough people.’ I agreed to pay half his air fare and he agreed to come.
Most people in St Moritz seem to be wealthy Russians (much like everywhere else, it seems) to whom skiing is an unimaginable concept.
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