Fletcher Looks Ahead to ’89 Ski Championships

One day late this summer, with the aspen leaves just starting to turn shades of gold and red in the Colorado Rockies, Pam Fletcher stood on top of Vail Mountain to think about the past and the future.

Green grass gave way to visions of snow as she fixed her eyes on the downhill course for the 1989 World Alpine Ski Championships, which will be held at Vail and nearby Beaver Creek next Jan. 29 to Feb. 12.

Fletcher came to Vail four months before the world championships to walk the downhill course and to try to get ready psychologically for that February day she’ll stand in the starting gate at the top of the mountain.

The bottom of the women’s downhill course in the world championships will be run over the same terrain that Fletcher skied in March, 1986, when she became just the third American woman to win a World Cup downhill race. The next year, on basically the same course the world downhill will be run, Fletcher finished third, so she has a special feeling for Vail.

Last winter, America’s best hope in the downhill missed most of the racing season because of a disastrous accident at the Winter Olympics in Calgary. At the end of a warmup run before the race, a course worker ran into Fletcher and broke her right leg, ending her hopes for a medal-winning performance.

Fletcher, 25, of Acton, Mass., says the accident has given her new resolve to do well in the upcoming ski racing season.

“When an injury happens,” she says, “you kind of feel like you had been cheated, especially when it’s a freak accident. That stuff happens, but I definitely feel like I lost control over my life.”

She thinks having the world championships at Vail, the first time since 1950 they’ve been held in the United States and just the second time since their inception, will give the U.S. ski team an advantage.

“Personally, I’ve always done well at Vail, so I was real excited about having the world championships here,” she said. “Everyone here is so encouraging, from the lift operators to the man selling tickets to the ski patrol and the course workers. It’s neat to see such a positive attitude.

“That’s the atmosphere we are lacking in Europe. It’s tough to compete in Europe where they have their own fan clubs. We don’t have that. It will be nice to have the encouragement from the people.”

Fletcher drove to the top of Vail Mountain to see the downhill course and then spent more than two hours studying it from the summit.

“I got to stop and focus in and really get within myself and think about what it (the race) is going to be like,” she said. “I ran the course 30 or 40 times over in my mind. I could actually feel the mistakes I have made in past runs.

“I’ve never done that before on any downhill. I’ve heard the Canadians did that at Calgary and that it had helped them. That’s one of the reasons I did it.”

Fletcher has been working with a Boulder, Colo., chiropractor, Doug Terry, and his wife, Jacqueline, who is a “neurolinguistic programmer.” She credits the couple with helping her get on track physically and mentally.

“All the pieces have to be there to be a productive athlete and an accomplished athlete,” she said. “You can’t ignore your body’s needs. In the past two years, I have really become aware of them. It’s made me a better athlete, and a better person.”

Fletcher will get an idea how far her recovery from last winter’s injury has come at the first World Cup races of the 1988-89 season, at Les Menuires, France, Nov. 26-29. Those races, a giant slalom and super G, will be followed by the season’s first downhill, at Val d’Isere, France, on Dec. 3.