Youth Movement Making a Mark on World Cup Skiing Circuit

Year 20 of World Cup skiing resumes today with the expectation that none of the big names of the past decade are likely to challenge for titles. The young chargers of last season have become the stars of the tour.

The leaders of the youth movement include men’s overall champion Marc Girardelli of Luxembourg, 22; 1984 champion and last year’s runnerup, 22-year-old Pirmin Zurbriggen of Switzerland, and 19-year-old Swiss Michela Figini, the women’s overall champion.

In fact, the only old-timer who figures to receive more than passing interest is the winningest racer in history, Sweden’s Ingemar Stenmark. At the advanced age, for ski racing, of 29, Stenmark returns for his 13th season in search of victory No. 80. The number means little, since Stenmark already has 52 more victories than runnerup Phil Mahre of the United States. But a victory would help salve the deep wounds of 1985, when Stenmark failed for the first time since 1974 to win a race.

Of course, failure is relative, and Stenmark in 1985 had a season many skiers would relish. He had seven top-five finishes and was sixth in the overall standings. But he didn’t win a race, and he failed for only the second time in his storied career to capture a World Cup trophy. He says openly he wants to erase the memory of that season; to Stenmark, that means winning.

Stenmark admitted, however, that his days of domination are over, thanks to Girardelli and Zurbriggen.

Girardelli, a transplanted Austrian, won 11 races last season in rolling up 262 points. His seven slalom victories tied Stenmark’s 1977 record. Zurbriggen settled for second place with 244 points, a remarkable achievement in that he lost a valuable month of competition because of a knee injury.

Girardelli and Zurbriggen appear evenly matched in two of the four Alpine disciplines, giant slalom and super-giant slalom, while Girardelli’s advantage in slalom is offset by Zurbiggen’s skill as a downhiller. If these two follow form, they could wage the closest battle for the overall title since 1975, when Italy’s Gustavo Thoeni, the eventual champion, Stenmark and Austria’s Franz Klammer came into the last race of the season in a first-place tie.

Girardelli is simply the best slalom skier in the world and is an odds-on favorite to win that title for the third year in a row. He and Zurbriggen, along with Switzerland’s Thomas Buergler, rate as favorites in GS and Super-G.

The chase for the downhill title, the most prestigious and fiercely contested individual crown, began in August with a pair of downhills in Argentina. Switzerland’s Karl Alpiger, who until the middle of last season was a second-seed skier, won both of those races.

When racing resumes in December, he’ll be challenged by Zurbriggen and Swiss teammates Peter Mueller, a two-time downhill champion, and Franz Heinzer; and a large Austrian group headed by defending downhill champion Helmut Hoeflehner.

The question on the women’s side is simple: Can anyone rein in Figini? The Swiss terror won the downhill title, tied for the giant slalom crown, placed second in the combined and even scored points in slalom.

If last season revealed anything, it is that any challenge to Figini will come from within her own team. Brigitte Oertli, Maria Walliser and two-time overall champ Erika Hess finished 2-3-4 behind Figini, and each should be in the hunt again this season. But none displayed the all-around talents needed to chase down Figini, already being touted as the best woman on skis since Austria’s Annemarie Moser-Proell dominated the 1970s.

American women, traditionally stronger than the American men, could test the Swiss. Former overall champion Tamara McKinney is a top slalom skier and joins veteran Debbie Armstrong and youngsters Diann Roffe and Eva Twardokens to form a potent giant slalom squad. Roffe won a GS gold and Twardokens a bronze in the World Championships last February.

Holly Flanders, at age 27 the senior American, is capable of some top finishes in downhill.

The men’s team, basically, is Doug Lewis, bronze medalist in the World Championship downhill behind Zurbriggen and Mueller. He got off to a fast start by placing second to Alpiger in the opening downhill and comes into December in fifth place in the downhill standings.

Bill Johnson, winner of the 1984 Winter Olympic downhill but a major disappointment a year later, rejoined the team after a short retirement this summer. It remains to be seen, however, whether Bad Billy can dispel the growing belief that his Olympic year was a fluke.