Word: slalomers
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...have won only 15 races. Mahre, 22, has won eight of them, and his twin brother Steve has won one. Last year Phil was second in the overall World Cup standings when he went to Lake Placid for a meet. While he was pounding down the hill in the slalom, the tip of his right ski caught one of the gates, and he went down, his ankle shattered. His skiing season was over. Unable to compete in the final three events, he finished third in the World...
...tenacity makes him one of the toughest skiers on the mountain. He started skiing at two in the deep snow of the Cascade Mountains, where his parents ran a ski resort at White Pass, Wash. A gifted athlete, he has made himself into a downhill racer, even though the slalom and giant slalom are his natural events. In an age of specialization, he has become a genuine contender in all events. Can he win a gold at Lake Placid? Says Mahre: "So many things can be a factor. The snow, the weather, is it warm so that waxing...
...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...