Vuarnet, the first skier to claim an Olympic gold medal on metal skis by winning the downhill event at the 1960 Winter Games in Squaw Valley in California, died of a stroke in Sallanches in France.

At the 1960 Winter Olympics, he wore a new type of anti-glare sunglasses provided for the French team.

After his win, he agreed a deal allowing the manufacturer to use his name on a world-famous brand of sunglasses. 

Vuarnet is also credited with inventing the aerodynamic "egg position" used now by ski racers.

Born in the Tunisian capital of Tunis on January 18 in 1933, Vuarnet grew up in the Morzine region of France.

He also won a bronze medal in the downhill event at the 1958 International Ski Federation Alpine World Ski Championships in Bad Gastein in Austria.

He went on to help develop Morzine’s Avoriaz ski resort, which opened in 1964.

It lies in the heart of the Portes du Soleil, a major ski sports destination in the Alps, encompassing 12 resorts between Mont Blanc in France and Lake Geneva in Switzerland.

Vuarnet suffered a personal tragedy in 1995 when his wife Edith Bonlieu, a former French ski champion, and son Patrick were among the 16 members of the Order of the Solar Temple cult who died in a murder-suicide. 

French police discovered the bodies of 14 victims arranged in a star-formation in the Vercors mountains of France.

Two other bodies were found nearby.

It was found later that two of them - police officer Jean-Pierre Lardanchet and Swiss architect Andre Friedli - shot the others and then committed suicide.