Word: figini
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...next two weeks the Swiss superskier, a likely bet to win a hatful of medals, was most noticeable as he smiled bashfully at cameras and gave gentlemanly praise to racers who were beating him. The expectations game was at least as delusive among the women. Wasn't Michela Figini, the fiery Italian-Swiss who is the sport's best woman downhiller, supposed to repeat her Sarajevo victory? And then claw it out for most of the other medals with her teammate and nonfriend the formidable German-Swiss Maria Walliser...
...Still, the surprise was genuine as West German Marina Kiehl won the downhill and a pair of strong Austrians, Anita Wachter and Sigrid Wolf, took the combined (a parlay of downhill and slalom) and the / super-G (a compressed, curvier downhill). Walliser managed a bronze in the combined and Figini a silver in the super-G, but interest swung to their teammate Brigitte Oertli (two silvers) and to Canada's new hope, Karen Percy. Skiing with a broken left thumb, she took a bronze in the downhill, scraped out a fourth in the combined with her left pole flopping uselessly...
Hold those corks . . . The early second-run lead went to Switzerland's Vreni Schneider, 23, an all-eventer who is strongest in slalom and GS. She is tied for the World Cup point lead with Figini. Schneider had accomplished nothing so far in the Games, and she was discouraged. Earlier, the Swiss coaches had yanked her out of the super-G lineup. She had been tight on her first GS run. She told herself to "do something fantastic or get out of racing. I went...
...sportswriter insisted -- a blond 21-year- old who stands a solid eleventh in World Cup rankings. She ran early and fast through stiff, changeable wind in the downhill. Among the stars who failed to touch her time were the glamorous Swiss rivals Maria Walliser, who finished fourth, and Michela Figini, Sarajevo's downhill winner, an ignominious ninth...
...would rather see a foreign skier win," Maria Walliser has said, "than be second to anyone on the Swiss team." In the snug little world of winter sports, everyone knows who "anyone" refers to: her teammate Michela Figini. Walliser, 24, was the World Cup overall champion in 1986 and 1987, and Figini, 21, was champion in 1985 and the world's top-rated downhill skier last year. They are the more than first-rate, and less than friendly, stars of a powerful female Swiss team...