Word: medalling
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...leading foreign coach puts it, "for sheer joy, unlike the Europeans, who often are driven by political, nationalistic or commercial pressures." At the age of 20, with his best years just ahead, Phil Mahre (pronounced mare) is already the finest American male skier in history, a solid gold-medal prospect for the 1980 Winter Olympic Games in Lake Placid, N.Y. As the World Cup competition ends this week in Arosa, Switzerland, Mahre is second only to Sweden's Ingemar Stenmark, 22, who has won the overall championship three years...
Mahre's success reflects the growing strength of the U.S. alpine team, which just two years ago won only a bronze medal at the Innsbruck Olympics. After that debacle, the team's annual budget was doubled, to $600,000, and its staff of coaches increased from half a dozen to 14. "With that kind of organizational and financial stability," says Alpine Ski Team Director Hank Tauber, "I can finally lay out ten-month racing and training programs and prepare younger racers as well." This year the American team trails only those of Austria and Switzerland in World...
...spools for the textile trade and wooden skis on the side. Boix-Vives borrowed $50,000, bought the firm and laid off everyone but 27 ski makers, creating a lean, one-product shop. Allais soon devised a metal ski that helped France's Jean Vuarnet win a gold medal in the 1960 Olympics at Squaw Valley, and Rossignol's reputation was made. Metal skis soared in popularity, but the firm was equipped to turn out only 7,500 pairs of metals, and the U.S.'s Head Skis cornered the market. Says Boix-Vives: "I learned an important...
Leon Spinks, just 24, had fought only seven times as a professional after a busy amateur career that culminated, as had Cassius Clay's, with the winning of the Olympic light heavyweight gold medal. Spinks had never fought more than ten rounds. The demanding logic of a title bout requires 15 rounds: it is the final five that probe the heart and take the true measure of a fighter's will. Ali was perhaps the greatest war horse in heavyweight history, a man who had the guts and gifts to win the excruciating final rounds. The odds against Spinks were...
...having to fight his age. By contrast, Willie Mays went on until he was 42 and found himself stumbling around under fly balls for the New York Mets. There is a natural season, a range of ages, for athletes in most sports. Russia's Olga Korbut, a gold medal gymnast in 1972 at the age of 17, appeared sadly middle-aged four years later. Rumania's Nadia Comaneci, whose gymnastic performance at the 1976 Olympics received perfect scores, seemed almost hefty a year later. Swimmers age more quickly than moths...