Word: slalomed
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...silvers. The cold war was thawing, and the U.S.S.R. athletes were popular with reporters and fellow competitors. The vaunted Austrian men skiers spent much of their time feuding among themselves over ski endorsements, and were dealt a double blow when Switzerland's Roger Staub captured the giant slalom and France's Jean Vuarnet placed first in the downhill...
...carves the slope with a surgeon's precision, hugging the fall line, darting through slalom gates with eyeblink speed. Down below they call him "the silent Swede," but up here Ingemar Stenmark is eloquent, communicating easily with the mountain. He knows what it will give him and what he must give in return. In his powdery wake, he leaves competitors a curt challenge: "I set the pace, and now you guys beat...
Unless fate or a dark horse intervenes, Stenmark should leave Lake Placid with one gold medal, and possibly two. In his specialty, the giant slalom (a zigzag race through 30 or more gates), he is virtually unbeatable. In 1978-79, he won this race all ten times it was staged in World Cup competition; this season he is three for three. In the slalom (a shorter, steeper course with more gates and sharper turns), his win rate approaches 50%. Says Phil Mahre, his friend and rival: "He is really a fantastic skier, especially on a steep course. He changes edges...
Stenmark joined the European racing circuit in 1974, when he was 17. The following year he blossomed. He was the World Cup leader in the slalom and giant slalom, and was in contention for the combined championship (slalom, giant slalom and downhill) until the final day of the season at Val Gardena, Italy, when he lost to Italian Gustavo Thoeni in a dramatic, head-to-head slalom. In 1976, he became the first Scandinavian to win the World Cup, and he was again champion...
...downhill, an event he shuns. Despite this self-imposed handicap, he leads in total points for this year's World Cup. Says he: "I just do not have time to train well enough for the downhill without cutting into the time I find necessary for the slalom and giant slalom." Adds Mahre: "Ingemar is a very precise man, a high-precision skier, and the slaloms are precise and perfectible. The downhill is just a matter of going fast...