WINTER OLYMPICS : ‘La Bomba, the Sequel’ a Runaway Hit
This time, it wasn’t quite so easy for “the beast from Bologna,” or whatever this creature is that has come out of Italy to terrorize the world of ski racing.
“La Bomba II,” played out during an intermittent snowstorm on Mt. Allan Saturday, had an entirely different plot from the original version that was performed on Thursday.
In that one, Alberto Tomba took the lead in the first minute of the first run of the Olympic giant slalom and defied everyone to catch him. No one came close.
In the sequel, he allowed two other racers--Frank Woerndl of West Germany and Jonas Nilsson of Sweden--to finish ahead of him in the first run of the slalom, then defied them to stay there.
Woerndl, at least, came close, but not close enough.
When it was over, Tomba had become the second Alpine skier to win two gold medals in the 15th Winter Games, joining Vreni Schneider of Switzerland, who took the same two races in the women’s competition.
And for “the second time in my life, I cried, but again they were tears of joy,” Tomba said. The other time, of course, was Thursday.
“I really didn’t think I could win another gold medal because I had made a mistake on my first run today,” Tomba said. “I was hoping, maybe the silver. So, now I am super happy.”
Asked if his father, Franco, would expand on his promise to buy Alberto a new Ferrari if he won a gold medal, and now buy him two new Ferraris, Tomba said, “No, no. I can only drive one.”
He did come up with a possible use for his second gold medal, however.
Tomba had said he wanted to win at least one to give him prestige when he met “famous stars such as (figure skater) Katarina Witt.” Saturday, he said: “Sure, I would like to see Katarina tonight, and maybe if she doesn’t win a gold medal, I can give her one of mine.”
The second one didn’t come without some suspense.
Woerndl, 28, who won a gold medal in the slalom at last year’s World Alpine Championships but hasn’t done much since, started No. 1, and his time of 50.99 seconds withstood the challenges of 113 others, including Nilsson, the No. 2 starter, who came in .45 of a second behind, and Tomba, who was .63 out of the lead.
Tomba, starting No. 11, had to ski a course that had already become a bit rutted, and his time, the third fastest of the first run, was therefore somewhat remarkable.
Former Austrian racer Karl Schranz said: “This is a race of (starting) numbers today. The man-made snow gets rutty after the first three or four skiers. Tomba did very well as No. 11.”
Later in the first run, snow (the natural kind) started falling, and this set up a slightly different situation for the second run. With the top 15 placings due to come down in inverse order, Tomba became starter No. 13, Nilsson No. 14 and Woerndl No. 15. These later numbers figured to be more desirable because there would be several racers who would clear the fresh snow off the new course before the leaders came down.
First, however, the old man of the mountains, Sweden’s Ingemar Stenmark, who will be 32 on March 18, gave the Olympics one last shot. He had an erratic first run, coming in 11th, 2.72 seconds behind Woerndl--too big a gap to close for the gold medal, but maybe if he had a great second run and some of the leaders fell, who knows? Perhaps a bronze, to go with the two golds he won at Lake Placid, N.Y., in 1980?
Stenmark proceeded to knock the course cold with a time that proved to be the fastest of the second run, 47.51 seconds, and although he temporarily took over the lead, not enough of the others cooperated, and he wound up fifth. .75 behind the winner and just .38 out of the bronze medal, which went to Paul Frommelt of Liechtenstein.
When it was Tomba’s turn, the Italian turned into a combination of Nureyev and Astaire, dancing through the gates on his skis with a minimum of upper-body movement.
He streaked under the finish banner with the only other second-run time under 48 seconds, a 47.85 that gave him a total of 1:39.47.
Nilsson appeared to ski too conservatively and dropped to sixth, leaving it up to Woerndl to try and stop Tomba.
Woerndl had the eighth slowest second run, 48.54, for a total of 1:39.53. Frommelt’s time for the bronze was 1:39.84.
“The only way to beat Tomba is to ski a perfect race, like my first run but not my second,” Woerndl said.
In the end, Tomba out-medaled his arch-rival Pirmin Zurbriggen, who won a gold in the downhill (which Tomba does not usually enter) but only a bronze in the giant slalom. The Swiss, however, finished the Games with 11 Alpine skiing medals (7 by the women, 4 by the men), including 3 golds, to only 6 medals for the Austrians, who also had 3 golds.
The United States ended its disastrous two weeks with Edith Thys’ ninth place in the women’s super-G as its only top-10 finish in 10 Alpine events.
Saturday, none of the four Americans finished both runs. Felix McGrath, the top U.S. contender, went out about one-third of the way down the first course.
“I was having a good solid run,” McGrath said. “I might have wound up about eighth, but I accidentally planted a pole between my legs and couldn’t get my ski back in time to avoid straddling a gate.”
Harald Schoenhaar, the U.S. Alpine program director, said he is stressing to his technical racers that they should try to “ski like Tomba; he goes through the gates cleanly.”
In other words, added Schoenhaar, “He doesn’t Rambo through them.”
Whatever he does, Tomba has joined the elite company of eight other Alpine skiers who have won two or more gold medals in the same Winter Olympics: Andrea Mead Lawrence of the United States in 1952, Toni Sailer of Austria in 1956, Jean-Claude Killy of France in 1968, Marie-Theres Nadig of Switzerland in 1972, Rosi Mittermaier of West Germany in 1976, Stenmark and Hanni Wenzel of Liechtenstein in 1980, and Schneider in 1988.
Sailer and Killy, of course, each won three golds. At Albertville, France, in the 1992 Winter Games, “La Bomba” will have just turned 25, and if he brushes up on his third event, the super-G race, in the meantime, those two may have company.