BLOWN AWAY : Vail Ski Championships Get Cold Slap in Face From Wind

A cold Arctic wind was whipping 50 nations’ flags, which were flying at half-mast in memory of a Spanish duke, as Day 4 of the World Alpine Ski Championships dawned on this overbuilt resort in the Rocky Mountains.

Clouds had replaced the blue sky and warm sunshine of the first 3 days, a condition more in keeping with the somber mood of the organizers, many of whom were wearing black armbands. But it was the wind that caused the major problem Wednesday.

Gusts of up to 80 m.p.h. at the top of the men’s downhill course in nearby Beaver Creek forced cancellation of two scheduled training runs, after the sixth racer of the morning suffered what one of his coaches described as “a nasty spill.”

The racer was Pirmin Zurbriggen, who happens to be the 1988 Olympic gold medalist in the downhill and arguably the world’s best skier over the last 5 years or so.

Zurbriggen picked himself up and skied down the mountain but said he was having difficulty breathing. The 3-time World Cup champion from Switzerland, who will turn 26 Saturday, was taken to Vail Valley Medical Center, where it was determined that he had suffered a chest bruise. The Swiss are hopeful that it won’t affect Zurbriggen’s performance in the men’s combined downhill Friday or in later events.

After Zurbriggen’s accident, the morning run was promptly called off by Ken Read, a former Canadian downhiller who is the International Skiing Federation’s safety inspector for the race. When the wind failed to let up, Read also canceled the afternoon run.

Vail and FIS officials are extremely safety-conscious in the wake of the death Monday of the Duke of Cadiz, Prince Alfonso de Borbon, an FIS Council member who skied into a cable supporting the men’s downhill finish banner, suffering a skull fracture and severing his brain stem.

Although Bob Knous, president of the Vail-Beaver Creek Organizing Committee, ruled that the duke’s death was an accident and no safety violations were involved, Eagle County Sheriff A.J. Johnson declined to either support or rebut that position.

“We will make no conclusions about safety violations until the investigation is done,” Johnson said.

The organizers, who have been preparing for these championships since 1986, have been fighting a series of accidents and problems for the past 2 weeks. Even before the start of competition last Sunday, race director Sarge Brown, a longtime Vail resident, was seriously injured in a skiing collision with a volunteer worker.

Then Beatrice Gafner of Switzerland broke her right shinbone and tore a ligament in her right knee during Monday’s downhill training, causing complaints by Swiss coaches that resulted in alterations to the women’s downhill course.

The men’s course also was criticized, first by Helmut Girardelli, father and coach of Austrian Marc Girardelli, who races for Luxembourg, and then by 1987 world downhill champion Peter Mueller of Switzerland.

The organizers bowed to the wishes of the senior Girardelli and took out some bumps that he had called dangerous, but all that did was make Mueller scream, “Now, the course is too easy.”

Tuesday produced a bomb scare for the organizers as a maintenance worker, shoveling snow and ice near the International Broadcast Center, discovered a military detonating device.

Police, assisted by military experts and bomb-sniffing dogs, searched the area but found nothing besides the spent M-60 fuse igniter.

Wednesday, the big discovery was made by Vail Valley merchants, restaurateurs and innkeepers, who began grumbling that business has not been as good as predicted. At least, not so far.

One shop owner, blaming the shortage of spectators on high ticket prices, called the situation “horrendous.”

However, Rob Levine, a spokesman for the Vail Resort Assn., said: “We’re not too happy, and we’re not too sad. Also, the big races are still to come.”

The women’s combined downhill will be held today, with Vreni Schneider and Brigitte Oertli of Switzerland, Tamara McKinney of the United States and Mateja Svet of Yugoslavia ready to compete for the medals.

The wind was not a factor Wednesday on Vail Mountain, site of the women’s downhill course, and both training runs went off as scheduled. Michaela Figini of Switzerland was fastest in the morning, and Carole Merle of France had the best clocking in the afternoon, for the second straight day.

American Pam Fletcher was 11th and fifth, to go with her eighth and second of the previous day.

With Denver television meteorologists continuing to predict plummeting temperatures in the Rockies as the cold Alaskan air mass drops south, Vail’s organizers are bracing for the next possible crisis--severe weather that could force postponement of this weekend’s glamour events, the regular men’s and women’s downhills, or at the least, keep potential spectators huddled around fireplaces.