WINTER OLYMPICS : Women’s Combined Skiing : Spectators’ Combined Event Is Sun, Fun

There are spectator sports and there are participant sports, and then there is skiing.

To be a spectator at a ski race, such as Saturday’s Olympic women’s combined downhill, it helps if you also participate. Dress in your $800 Descente ski outfit, the one that makes you look like you’re a member of the Swiss or American teams (preferably the Swiss), and step into your skis.

This can be likened to carrying your clubs to Riviera for the L.A. Open or wearing your whites and taking a racket and a can of balls to Wimbledon. But never mind. In skiing, it’s perfectly acceptable.

Once in your skis, you can ride the chairlift to the start of the race and watch from alongside the course, or you can do what most people do--take a shortcut and head directly for the finish area, where you’re ready to see and be seen.

In either case, you’ve become part of the race, more or less.

The idea now is not necessarily to watch the racers. At least not all the time. There’s too much else going on.

Take the finish area at Mt. Allan Saturday, for example.

Most of the downhill course is hidden from view, but a large DiamondVision-type screen enables everyone to watch each racer all the way down to the top of the final slope, where RealVision takes over.

At 10:15 a.m., MST, under a brilliant sun, the fun begins on schedule, with several forerunners leading the way.

Inside the media enclosure, Peter Mueller, the silver medalist in the men’s downhill last Monday, is talking to Suzy (Chapstick) Chaffee, who is carrying a microphone attached to a tape recorder, but it’s not turned on. Mueller, it seems, doesn’t lose interest as Chaffee walks away. But enough of that. Here comes racer No. 1, Beatrice Gafner, who is Swiss, like Mueller. But Mueller is still looking at Chaffee. It’s just as well. Gafner misses a gate and skis to a stop before she’s even halfway down.

“ Abandonee ,” says the public-address announcer, meaning, in French, that Gafner abandoned her run.

Several Swiss fans, who were waving the flag of some canton (province) and furiously ringing a huge cowbell, immediately calm themselves.

OK, next racer on course. Karin Dedler of West Germany manages to make it all the way down and, of course, goes into the lead. No matter that she winds up tied for 16th, it’s her moment of fame.

It doesn’t last 15 minutes, though; more like three or four, the time it takes Golnur Postnikova of the Soviet Union to start and then abandon her run, and for Kerrin Lee to ski into the lead.

Lee is a Canadian, and the homefolks go crazy, cheering and waving red-and-white maple leaf flags. Canada’s former Olympic champion, Nancy Greene, her wide smiling face framed by the same short haircut she wore in 1968, yells, “All riiight!”

Suzy Chaffee, meanwhile, is “interviewing” Hubertus von Hohenlohe of the Mexican Ski Team. In fact, Von Hohenlohe is the Mexican Ski Team, but he’s speaking in German. Through some roundabout past royal connection and/or Mexico City residency, Von Hohenlohe is able to compete in the Winter Olympics.

He already has one race under the belt of his white Bogner jumpsuit, having finished 43rd in a field of 45 in the men’s downhill.

But he looks like a prince now, with shaggy brown hair, tanned face and sunglasses, and he’s also concentrating more on Chaffee than on American Hilary Lindh, racer No. 6, who is just skiing under the finish banner.

Von Hohenlohe turns his back for a moment, revealing an inscription across his shoulders in red white and green: “ Equipo Mexicano de Esqui Proudly Presents Hubertus v. Hohenlohe .” There’s a cactus in the middle of Mexicano .

Lindh makes a quick exit from the finish area, commenting to reporters that her run “wasn’t bad, considering that I wasn’t psyched for it. I wasn’t even supposed to be in this race until Pam (Fletcher) broke her leg.”

Fletcher, injured while warming up on Thursday, is watching the race, wearing her USA uniform and trying to hobble through the snow on her crutches. She cheers as another American, Edith Thys, comes into view for the final schuss to a time that ultimately makes her the leading American, in 12th place.

Soon, it’s time for Canada’s new national heroine, Karen Percy, to make her run, and the noise level begins to build before she’s even out of the starting gate. Good thing this isn’t Riviera or Wimbledon.

In the grandstand, someone is holding a large sign that reads, “KAREN PERCY, BANFF’S BEST,” and maple leaves again fill the air in honor of the skier who won the host nation’s first medal of the Games, a bronze in the regular women’s downhill, on Friday.

The screaming reaches a crescendo as Percy, who is racer No. 11, takes over third place. Temporarily.

Before long, Vreni Schneider of Switzerland moves ahead of her (more cowbells), as does Austrian Anita Wachter, the latter eliciting a loud “ Ja, ja, ja “ from Karl Schranz, who won just about everything except an Olympic gold medal for Austria in the late 1960s and early ‘70s.

Schranz, who was declared a “professional” on the eve of the 1972 Games by the late Avery Brundage, then president of the International Olympic Committee, is here as a commentator for an Austrian television network.

While Wachter, who took the lead with a time of 1:17.14, begins to tell the assembled media about her run, in German, she suddenly finds herself in second place, her fall punctuated by the cowbells that signal the arrival of racer No. 15, Switzerland’s Maria Walliser, in 1:16.98.

More German from Walliser, causing American and Canadian reporters to tug at the sleeves of their European counterparts, asking: “What’d she say? What’d she say?”

No matter. Walliser is also history, as No. 16, Carole Merle moves to the top of the leaderboard with a 1:16.46. So, how’s your French?

There are still 24 skiers to go, but the race is over, except for No. 28, Michelle McKendry, who sneaks into fourth place for Canada, ahead of her more renowned teammates, Lee and Percy, who end up eighth and ninth, respectively.

Suzy Chaffee, by this time, is looking for another interview, but there’s only Harald Schoenhaar, director of the U.S. Alpine program, patiently explaining to reporters one more time that his team is young, is injured and is going to get better. “Just hang in there with us, guys,” he says.

Today, they’ll hold the other half of the combined, the slalom, and Wachter should probably be favored to come up with the best total score and the gold medal. However, Schneider and Swiss teammate Brigitte Oertli, who was 11th Saturday after taking a silver medal in the regular women’s downhill the day before, also figure to ring up a few points.

Not to mention a cowbell or two.