Word: skier
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Considering that his domain is a collection of play villages built on the order of cuckoo clocks, Mahre seems wondrously down to earth. His celebrity in Europe is such that, when the greatest skier in the world comes home to the U.S., he enjoys being ignored. "I don't think there are many Americans who understand what I've done," Mahre said. "That's unfortunate for skiing but nice for me. I'm not one for fame and fortune." He does not strike himself as being that phenomenal. "I grew up in the snow," he said...
Concerning finances, he is forthright. It is hard to find pictures of the Mahres, or any skier for that matter, without skis propped over their hearts, brand names out. When Phil was asked if he intended to go on and wind up the season this week in Japan, he replied, "Sure, if not for myself, for my companies...
Billy Kidd, the pre-eminent U.S. skier of the '60s, stood off to the side at Mahre's Aspen victory, marveling, actually chuckling, over how relatively little Mahre appears to value the usual rewards. "Recognition, money, history books," Kidd said, "he doesn't care much about any of that. Only about having fun. He's serious, of course, but not intense. It's incredible that he's this way and this good. Above all, he's an unbelievable athlete...
Indeed, as an athlete, Phills regards himself as something other than a hulking specimen of brute force. Drafted by a junior professional hockey team in Canada when he was sixteen, a former high school football star, a competition-class water skier and a three-year member of Harvard's rugby team, Phills qualifies and an all-around athlete...
Borg's physical gifts alone would have been enough to make him extraordinary: regular pulse rate 35, usual blood pressure 70 over 30. His countryman Ingemar Stenmark, the slalom skier, placed second to him in a European health institute's study of the strength in athletes' legs. Then there were Borg's instincts. He was fitted with enough quickness even before trophy was installed, magnified by his almost eerie eyesight. "He's a robot from outer space," was always Court Jester Ilie Nastase's hushed theory, "a Martian." But of all the elements...