One Hundred Years of Skiing

Skiing is more than a century old. The year 1905 saw the first organized downhill competition in Austria when the ski pioneer, Mathias Zdarsky, organized a slalom race with eighty-five flags on the slopes of the Muckenkogel near the town of Lilienfeld in Lower Austria.

Today Austria ranks as a "world power" in skiing, and skiing is certainly the most popular and widely spread sport among Austrian people. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the Austrian Mint issued in January 2005 a coin honoring the country's national sport, skiing. It is a 5 Euro coin and the reverse of the coin shows a downhill skier weaving between the flag posts symbolized by a stylized snowflake. The coin is made of 800 fine silver and has a mintage of 500,000 pieces with a brilliant uncirculated finish. For more information, see: www.eurocollections.com