Word: stenmark
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...Sweden, Stenmark is a national hero on a par with Tennis Professional Bjorn Borg. With his freckles and curly hair, Ingemar has an appealing, boyish look that should...
...Stenmark, 23, is something of a skiing oddity, a man from a Nordic country who excels in alpine events and regularly beats the Germans, Austrians, Swiss, Italians and Frenchmen, who have long dominated downhill skiing. He grew up in tiny Tarnaby (pop. 600), just 50 miles south of the Arctic Circle, and learned to ski on the gentle slope behind his home. Tutored by a father who was a devotee of skiing, Stenmark was Ingemar Stenmark preps for the Olympics at a World Cup race in France a budding virtuoso...
...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...
Last season he captured a record 14 races, two more than France's Jean-Claude Killy did in 1967. Even with that showing, Stenmark finished only fifth in the overall standings. He was penalized by a rule change that made it exceedingly difficult to win the Cup without scoring in the 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...
...Stenmark's technique is spare and tightly controlled, quite unlike the hellbent, hurtling style of a Killy. In the early days of slalom competition, skiers navigated the gates with looping S-turns. Later they flattened out the S-turns and substituted rapid-fire slashes, often brushing the poles. The Swede has achieved further refinements, reducing the slashes to mere flickers of shifting body weight. He owes much of his letter-perfect form to exceptional physical gifts. "He has tremendous balance, great agility, a good eye and fantastic concentration," says former U.S. Alpine Team Director Hank Tauber. "He has what...