World Cup Ski Stars Will Open Season Dec. 1

Although there are no Olympic or world championship medals to be won this winter, the four-month World Cup ski season promises exciting battles in the mountains of Europe, Japan and North America.

Austrian Franz Klammer, the most charismatic skier of the past decade, has followed French ace Jean-Claude Killy into a retirement of manufacturing expensive skiwear, but otherwise almost all the top stars will be back this season.

Slalom and giant slalom king Marc Girardelli of Luxembourg failed to win a gold medal at the world championships last February, but came back to win his first overall World Cup title and take the Cups in both of his specialist disciplines.

This year, Girardelli could be a force in downhill as well and challenge Switzerland’s double world champion Pirmin Zurbriggen as the world’s top all-round skier.

Sweden’s Ingemar Stenmark returns to have another attempt at regaining slalom supremacy, while rising Swiss star Karl Alpiger has a head start on his rivals in the men’s downhill. Alpiger won both races held at Las Lenas, Argentina, in August which count for this season’s World Cup.

The Swiss women’s wonder team took every World Cup title last year but the giant slalom Cup--where Marina Kiehl of West Germany edged Michela Figini.

Figini, Maria Walliser, Erika Hess and their other teammates are all back. But the women’s slalom races could be the keenest-fought, with Hess defending her Cup title against strong challenges from the United States, Italy and a powerful French squad which includes the gold and silver medalists from the world championships plus the Polish Tlalka twins who married Frenchmen last month and should be racing for France this winter.

A new rule in this year’s World Cup is that only the top 30 finishers in slalom and giant slalom go through to the second run. This experiment will run only in December for the men, but for the whole season for the women. The one-run super-giant slalom becomes a separate discipline this year.

The grueling Cup circuit starts for the men at Courmayeur, Italy, Dec. 1 and for the women four days later at Puy St. Vincent, France. In late November, the world’s top skiers tune up for the winter at the annual World Series--switched from Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, to Sestriere, Italy.

The circuit again takes in the major European centers--with Scandinavian venues restored to the schedule this season -- then the women go briefly to Japan and both men and women end up in the United States and Canada towards the end of March for the World Cup finale.

An assessment of the hopes and prospects of the leading Alpine ski teams for the coming season:

United States

U.S. Alpine director Harald Schoenhaar and his coaches have overcome problems with their top stars, 1984 Olympic downhill champion Bill Johnson and Tamara McKinney, the 1983 women’s World Cup winner.

Johnson, 25, threatened to quit the U.S team last spring and boycotted a training camp. The emergence of Doug Lewis, bronze medalist at the 1985 world championships, and the withdrawal of financial support apparently lured Johnson back.

“There’s still some roughness between Bill and the team but we’ve solved our problems pretty good,” said Schoenhaar, who has also rebuilt the women’s coaching squad to work closely with McKinney in hopes she can win another World Cup title.

“She’s capable of doing everything,” Schoenhaar said. “With all new coaches, she’s trying hard again and she should be way up there in the standings again.”

McKinney, winner of two World Cup races last season, will be joined again by surprise world giant slalom champion Diann Roffe, bronze medalist Eva Twardokens and Olympic giant slalom champion Debbie Armstrong.

The weaker men’s team consists basically of Johnson and Lewis. After those two downhillers, Schoenhaar has a handful of skiers with World Cup experience but no top 20 results.

“We’re hoping to get some points from the other skiers and we’ve spent the whole summer doing more physical work to give them the strength to be more competitive,” said Schoenhaar, who tipped Felix McGrath as possibly the best of the up and coming group.

Austria

Austria approaches the new season without its most famous racer Franz Klammer, 1976 Olympic downhill champion, world champion and winner of more than 30 World Cup races, and its longtime men’s coach Karl “Charlie” Kahr.

Kahr is replaced by Dieter Bartsch, who built up the Swiss women’s team of Figini, Hess, Walliser and others in recent years.

“We will have to start from scratch,” said Bartsch. “I don’t think that an Austrian has a chance this coming season to aim at the overall World Cup. However, we will certainly win a few races and I hope we can improve the overall standard of our team.”

Bartsch started his job with a new system: he skipped the separation of his team into the three Alpine disciplines and wants every racer to work out in all of them.

“We have seen that top stars like Pirmin Zurbriggen and Marc Girardelli can do all three events, I want our racers eventually to do the same,” Bartsch said.

This season, however, he will still have specialists like defending Cupholder Helmut Hoeflehner, veteran Harti Weirather and Peter Wirnsberger in the downhill and Robert Zoller, Franz Gruber and Thomas Stangassinger in the slalom. Weirather, the 1982 world downhill champion, has recovered from a long lasting back ailment.

Anton Steiner, Austria’s only Olympic medalist in Sarajevo, said he will do nothing but downhills this season until he can pile up enough points to gain top class seedings in the two other events.

Women’s coach Andreas Rauch said his main hopes are pinned on Elisabeth Kirchler, Austria’s most successful woman in the past few seasons, Anni Kronbichler in the downhill and Roswitha Steiner in the slalom.

France

The French men’s team has lost three racers to retirement: Michel Vion, Patrick Lamotte and Michel Canac, and is pinning its hopes on Didier Bouvet, the 1984 Olympic slalom bronze medalist who hopes to break into the top 15 after ending last season in 18th place.

The team also has high hopes for downhiller Franck Piccard and giant slalomist Christian Mougel. A team spokesman said the objective this season is to “close the gap” with the top men’s teams.

The stronger women’s team has lost Caroline Attia to retirement, but gained Poland’s top two skiers, Malgorzata and Dorota Tlalka. On Oct. 12, the pair married two brothers from Grenoble, cyclist Christophe and sportswriter Christian Magore, and a team spokesman said the twin 22-year-old sisters will have French citizenship “before the first race.”

The Tlalkas, world champion Perrine Pelen and silver medalist Christelle Guignard will give France a powerful slalom squad. The top women downhillers are Claudine Emonet and Catherine Quittet while Marie-Christine Gros-Gaudenier, injured all last season, returns to the downhill team.

Women’s coach Sylvain Dao Lena says his objective this year is to win the slalom championship and try to win some races in other disciplines.

Italy

A coaching change after the Argentina races may have breathed some new life into the Italian men’s downhill squad, Michele Stefani being replaced by Antonio Sperotti.

“We’ve rediscovered our tranquility, that’s what we missed last season,” Italy’s top downhiller Michael Mair said. “Before, nothing seemed to work for us. I’m convinced that we’ll return to top form and win some races.”

The giant Mair will struggle to retain his ranking as top national downhiller against talented 18-year old Giorgio Piantanida, who placed a respectable 18th in the second downhill at Las Lenas in his first taste of World Cup competition.

Former “B” team coach Guido Regruto, named recently as women’s “A” team coach, called Piantanida “a racer who goes to the attack in difficult situations.”

Italian chances in the slaloms could be high, with veteran Paolo de Chiesa (fifth in the FIS rankings) returning for his 10th season and joined by young Oswald Toetsch (fourth), Robert Erlacher and Richard Pramotton.

Among the Italian women, Olympic slalom champion Paoletta Magoni is the best bet. The 21-year-old also won a bronze medal at the World Championships last February and will be alongside veterans Maria Rosa Quario and newly-married Daniela Zini as the focus of the team.

Quario, who last spring was fined $6,000 and got an eight months suspended jail sentence for illegally exporting capital, thought about retirement during the World Championships after a string of disappointments, but she is back on track for this season.

Sweden

Ingemar Stenmark, with a record 79 World Cup victories, failed to win a race last year but is back with renewed strength.

After 10 years at the top, winning three overall World Cups, eight slalom trophies and seven giant slalom Cups, the 29-year-old this season postponed his practice on snow for a month.

“I don’t need as much practice on snow as before,” said Stenmark. “I have been training well during the summer and it’s more important for me to maintain my motivation.”

Stenmark, who last season had two second places in slalom and one second in giant slalom as his best results, hinted he may concentrate only on slalom this season.

“He has yet not decided, but I think he’ll race in both Cups this year too,” said Sweden’s national coach Lars Olsson. “He’s in very good shape and well motivated.”

This year, only three Swedes are ranked among the top 20 slalomists, against six last year. New hopes are instead Jonas Nilsson, the 1985 world slalom champion and up-and-coming Johan Wallner, who improved his ranking from 150 to No. 17 in slalom last season.

Other members in the Swedish team are Lars-Goran Halvarsson, who fell from No. 10 to 42 in the slalom rankings due to a knee injury last year, Jorgen Sundquist, Gunnar Neuriesser and Bertil Edsas.

Switzerland

The team with the most depth is undoubtedly Switzerland, which packs the top starting seeds everywhere but in the men’s slalom.

The men’s team is led by the world’s best all-round skier, double world champion Pirmin Zurbriggen. His preparations for the season were delayed by his 17-week basic military training ending in early November, but he said: “I figure it just takes about two weeks to make up for the gap.”

A bigger question might be if Zurbriggen’s knee, which was mended by arthroscopic surgery just two weeks before he won the world downhill title in Bormio last February, will hold up. Some medical experts believe he resumed racing too early.

In downhill, he will get the stiffest competition from his own camp, mostly from Karl Alpiger, who won both summer races in Argentina. Still with the team is veteran downhiller Peter Mueller, always good for a victory.

There is a second Zurbriggen pushing to the top, Pirmin’s 18-year-old sister Heidi, second in the world junior championships in downhill, slalom and giant and, like her brother, a good all-rounder.

She has been outracing established winners such as Michela Figini, Maria Walliser and Erika Hess in practice runs, but says: “My first job is to move into the top starting group, and I just aim for finishes among the top ten.”

Figini, overall and downhill World Cup winner last season and downhill world champion, and Walliser have to be reckoned with in the downhill, giant and super-giant, Hess in the slalom and giant.

“I’m newly motivated and hungry again,” announced Hess, triple world champion in 1982 but a failure in both the 1984 Olympics and the last world championships.

Liechtenstein, once a powerhouse, is reduced to a two-person show of all-rounder Andreas Wenzel and Ursula Konzett.

West Germany

“Last year we had a bad winter,” said Helmut Rehnbuch, a West German Ski Federation official. “But now we are on a slight upward trend.”

In the men’s World Cup, the team is putting its main hopes on slalomist Florian Beck and giant slalom world champion Markus Wasmeier, along with five other “A” team skiers.

Wasmeier, 24, included grass ski jumping in his summer training, saying “it is a good character builder.” Beck, 27, is the husband of Maria Epple, West Germany’s top woman slalomist.

Marina Kiehl will defend her women’s giant slalom World Cup title, backed up by fellow all-rounders Traudl Haecher, Michaela Gerg and Regine Moesenlechner, with Epple the best slalom bet.

Yugoslavia

Although the team is weakened by the retirement of Jure Franko, Yugoslavia’s only medalist at the 1984 Olympic Games in Sarajevo, Yugoslav ski officials believe they still have a strong squad.

Veteran slalomist Bojan Krizaj, 28, is already in good form and Rok Petrovic, 19, should do well in giant slalom providing he fully recovers from a back muscle injury.

“We shall try to do all in our power to keep the reputation we have achieved in the World ski Cup,” Tone Vogrinec, director of the Yugoslav Alpine team, said. “But it will be extremely difficult because we are not a world ski superpower.”

Young stars in the men’s events are Saso Robic, 18; Robert Zan, 18, and Gregor Grilc, 15. Robic and Zan won medals at the junior World Cup.

Mateja Svet, 17, and Katja Lesjak, 18, lead the women’s team. Svet was giant slalom gold medalist in the junior World Cup.

Three other women who may achieve good results are Andreja Leskovsek, 20; Dasa Segula, 17, and Barbara Kuhar, 17. All three are now treating injuries but hope to be fit for the beginning of the World Cup, ski federation officials said.