Industry News
Sven Coomer, a former Olympian and the designer widely credited with creating the modern ski boot, died March 10 in Aspen, Colorado, of heart failure. He was 84. Coomer’s breakthrough designs in the 1970s fundamentally changed the skiing experience, replacing the discomfort of stiff leather boots with supportive, plastic-shell footwear that remains the foundation of ski boot construction today.
According to an article published by the Wall Street Journal, Coomer was born in Sydney, Australia, on October 12, 1940, and when he was 16 he competed in the modern pentathlon for his home country at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne. However, his lifelong mark on sports came after he discovered alpine skiing while studying engineering in Sweden in 1960. That trip spurred him to leave university and pursue skiing full-time.
By the mid-1960s, Coomer was directing ski schools in Utah and Nevada and testing equipment for Skiing magazine. The WSJ reports that he was later hired by Beconta, the U.S. importer for Nordica boots, and tasked with developing a better ski boot.
“I was hellbent on finding a way to make ski boots comfortable and supportive, which they had never been,” Coomer wrote in his 2023 memoir Sea to Ski.
His most enduring design was the Nordica Grand Prix, which introduced a leather liner, a high tongue, and a multi-piece plastic shell—features that became the basis for performance boots used by both recreational and professional skiers worldwide. Clearly Cooper was extremely influential in the design of ski boots as his designs are still used today with the world’s top olympians.
Coomer also helped pioneer the art of custom ski boot fitting, founding ZipFit in 1989 to develop anatomically tailored liners. After relocating to Aspen, he continued to work one-on-one with skiers, from beginners to professionals, customizing boots and sharing stories over coffee in his workshop.
Though known for his contributions to skiing, Coomer also lived a life full of colorful, sometimes mysterious adventures, the WSJ writes. In Sea to Ski, he claimed to have trained with British Special Forces and participated in a covert operation in Tibet in the late 1950s. His daughter, Robin Coomer, said he never fully confirmed the stories but believed the spirit of them reflected his true character. Coomer was known to be an adventure seeker who lived life to the fullest, once even completing a 675-mile ski expedition across the Alps.
Coomer is survived by his daughter, Robin, and son, Seth. He was inducted into the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Hall of Fame in recognition of his contributions to ski innovation and sport safety.
