Skiing : Prospects for Pros Improves

Like the USFL and Team Tennis, pro ski-racing just refuses to go away. If anything, it seems to have gotten stronger in the last couple of years under the sponsorship of Peugeot.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that public interest is any greater or that the level of competition is any better, only that there are still companies in and out of the ski industry with money to spend on promotion.

The head-to-head format is exciting and made for television, a fact that has been recognized by ESPN, Metromedia TV and Sportschannel, which among them will show every race on this season’s 12-event tour.

Yes, the Peugeot Grand Prix is back for 1985-86 with what the automaker calls a “record half-million dollars in prize money,” which lifts pro ski-racing to about the same financial plateau as when Bob Beattie schussed away from it in 1981.

There are still no familiar names on the circuit--they’re all racing in the “White Circus” of the World Cup, where the pay is several times better. The obvious conclusion from this, of course, is that as long as it’s more lucrative to remain an amateur, none of the top racers are going to turn professional.

The pros to watch on your favorite cable-TV channel this season include Jarle Halsnes, the defending champion from Norway, and his brother Edvin; Reidar Wahl, the 1983-84 winner who is also Norwegian; Gunnar Grassl of Sweden; Mikael Berg, last season’s Rookie of the Year from Switzerland, and Cary Adgate, Peter Dodge, Dave Stapleton and Mark Tache, all of the United States.

Tache, a native of Beverly Hills who resides in Aspen, Colo., competed with the U.S. Ski Team the past two seasons.

First stop for the pros will be Aspen on Dec. 12-15. They’ll be in California twice, at Heavenly Valley on Jan. 23-26 and at Snow Summit on Feb. 13-16. The finals are scheduled for Keystone, Colo. on April 3-6.

Monday’s storm produced rain in the local mountains and wet snow in the High Sierra.

Six Southland ski areas were operating Tuesday on 6 to 24 inches of hardpack: Goldmine, Snow Summit, Snow Valley, Mountain High, Kratka Ridge and Mt. Waterman.

The snow level in the Sierra hovered between 7,000 and 8,000 feet, but Mammoth Mountain reported six inches new for an 84-inch total, while June Mountain, Sierra Summit, Badger Pass at Yosemite and points farther north benefited in similar fashion.

The usual December shortage of snow in the Alps has caused some shuffling of World Cup races this year.

Last Sunday’s opening men’s slalom, in which Yugoslavia’s Rok Petrovic and Bojan Krizaj finished 1-2, had to be switched from Courmayeur, Italy, to Sestriere, Italy, and this Thursday’s women’s downhill at Puy St. Vincent, France, has been canceled entirely.

Races are still scheduled at Val d’Isere, France, for the men and at Sestriere for the women this weekend . . . but stay tuned.

World Cup organizers hope to eliminate this annual confusion next season by holding the December events on the more dependably snowy slopes of North America.

Skiing Notes Retired U.S. Ski Team stars Phil and Steve Mahre have opened two more of their Mahre Training Centers, at Heavenly Valley and at Stowe, Vt., to go with the one started last season at Keystone, Colo. One or both of the twins will be at Heavenly for at least a portion of each of the three one-week sessions set for Dec. 16-21, Jan. 27-Feb. 1 and Feb. 3-8. . . . The Mt. Lincoln run at Sugar Bowl, where Anthony DeCosta, 24, of Santa Rosa, Calif., was killed in an avalanche last Friday, was “dynamited and skied six times by our avalanche-control team before it was opened,” according to Rob Kautz, the resort’s vice president of operations. He said avalanche consultant Norm Wilson of Donner Lake, Calif., has been called in to determine what caused the slide. . . . The North American Ski Trophy Series begins its four-month dash across the continent next Tuesday and Wednesday with giant slaloms at Stowe, Vt., for the men and at Stratton Mountain, Vt., for the women. . . . A one-week, all-expenses-paid ski trip for two to New Zealand is the grand prize in the Napa Naturals all-comers’ recreational race Saturday and Sunday at Kirkwood. . . . Warren Miller’s 90-minute ski film, “Steep and Deep,” will be shown Saturday at Pacific Christian College Auditorium in Fullerton (8 p.m.) and at Loma Linda University’s Gentry Gym in Loma Linda (6:30 and 9 p.m.). The final screening will be next Tuesday at the Universal Amphitheater (8 p.m.). . . . Ski school director Nic Fiore is starting his 38th season at Badger Pass Ski School--not bad for someone who asked when he first came to Yosemite and saw El Capitan: “But where do the beginners ski?”