Word: monti
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...sentimentalists, there was Eugenio Monti, 40, Italy's "Red Devil" of the bobsled run, a nine-time world champion but never before an Olympics gold-medal winner, who finally realized his lifelong ambition-twice over -with victories in both the two-man and four-man events. The U.S., too, had someone to cheer in Michigan's Terry McDermott, ten pounds heavier and four years older (at 27) than he was when he astonished everyone by winning the men's 500-meter speed-skating race at Innsbruck in 1964. This time, on a rink that...
...downhill by almost half a second over France's Isabelle Mir. The pro-caliber Russian hockey team blanked Finland, 8-0, and East Germany, 9-0, then handed the U.S. squad its third straight defeat, by the equally lopsided score of 10-2. Nine-time World Champion Eugenio Monti, at 40, demonstrated that he has lost none of his skill and daring by piloting Italy's No. 1 sled to victory in the first two heats of the two-man bobsled. And no one could keep pace with Russia's Ludmila Titova in the ladies...
...Monti is a bobber mostly by mischance. Skiing was his game until he ripped the ligaments in both knees practicing for the 1952 Olympics; he tried his hand briefly at auto racing (too expensive) before turning to bobsledding at the late age of 25. With speeds up to 70 m.p.h. on the straightaways, and G forces up to six times gravity on the turns, bobbing is one of the world's most exacting sports. The trick is to stay just short of disaster, taking the steeply banked turns as high as possible (so as to pick up speed...
Like a Jockey. Monti scored the use of brakes ("They are only good for stopping at the end") or a steering wheel (he preferred to use reins, like a jockey), told his crewmen to "sit quiet and close your eyes if you want." He won six two-man world championships, plus two world titles in four-man sleds. The streak came to an end at the 1964 Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria, when Britain's Tony Nash won the two-man race in a damaged sled that Monti had helped repair. Monti decided to retire to his ski lifts...
Then the International Bobsledding and Tobogganing Federation chose Cortina's twisting (twelve curves) Ronco run as the site for last week's 1966 championships. Monti could not bear the thought of standing around as a spectator while Nash or somebody else won the race on his own home course. Besides, Brakeman Sergio Siorpaes had designed a faster, more maneuverable sled with motorcycle shock absorbers and a central pivot that permitted both sets of runners to bank independently on curves. "I have never felt more like racing," said Monti after testing the sled. Even a crash failed to dampen...