World Alpine Skiing Championships : Girardelli Wins Combined and Is Among Favorites in Downhill Today

It is now becoming clear that the best all-around skier in the world this winter is not the Swiss, Pirmin Zurbriggen, or the Italian, Alberto Tomba. It’s a guy from . . . Luxembourg?

Well, not really. That’s what his passport and racing-suit insignia say, but Marc Girardelli is all Austrian. He skies like an Austrian, and he wins like an Austrian wishes he could.

Friday, he won the gold medal in the men’s combined at the World Alpine Ski Championships, repeating his feat of 2 years ago in this event at Crans-Montana, Switzerland.

Girardelli, 25, skied for Austria as a junior, but when his father, Helmut, decided that young Marc wasn’t getting the recognition or financial support he deserved, they went searching for another country.

Luxembourg, it turned out, had an opening for a racer. In fact, it had openings for an entire ski team, which turned out to be the Girardellis, son and father--racer and coach.

That was in 1976. With Helmut calling the shots and Marc making all the right moves, they went on to win the World Cup overall titles in 1985 and ‘86, then finish second to Zurbriggen in ’87. A shoulder injury hampered him last season, when he finished fifth and had a lackluster Winter Olympics.

Surgery last spring by Dr. Richard Steadman, who had also repaired his severely damaged left knee in 1983, helped him regain his form, and he now tops the World Cup standings with 306 points to 231 for the runner-up Zurbriggen and 133 for the third-place Tomba.

These championships are not part of the World Cup circuit, which will resume later this month, but victories here are more highly prized. With four more men’s races to go, Girardelli was asked Friday if he could pull off a gold-medal sweep.

“I am happy just to win the combined,” he said. “That was my first goal, and now the pressure is somewhat relieved, because everybody expected me to win at least one gold medal. As for five (gold medals), I have not even thought about what happens later.”

Certainly, Girardelli will be one of the favorites in today’s regular men’s downhill, which will be held on the same Beaver Creek course, lengthened by a slightly higher start. Originally a slalom/giant slalom specialist, he has won three of the last four World Cup downhills--at Kitzbuehel, Austria, and Wengen, Switzerland--and was second in the other one.

In Friday’s race, Girardelli was just .01 of a second behind first-place finisher Michael Mair of Italy, who was clocked in 2:04.63, and together with his third place in Sunday’s combined slalom, the time was enough to give him victory in the combined standings.

Zurbriggen, who was thought to have a chance of catching Girardelli, was more than 3 1/2 seconds behind the leaders and wound up fourth in the combined.

Said Zurbriggen, who suffered chest and upper-back injuries in a training spill Wednesday: “I felt I was lucky just to be able to ski today.”

Zurbriggen was beaten out of a possible bronze medal by teammate Paul Accola, who survived a near-crash on the bottom to move into second place, knocking Austrian Guenther Mader into the bronze.

Girardelli had a winning low total of 4.72 points to 16.26 for Accola, 31.49 for Mader and 40.41 for Zurbriggen.

Accola said Zurbriggen didn’t seem particularly upset, adding: “He has won so many medals that a bronze in the combined was not so important to him. For him, only the gold is important. It took a lot of courage for him just to race today.”

According to Girardelli, who speaks fluent English, Zurbriggen also failed to adapt his technique to the changing snow conditions.

“When I saw that it was snowing and the visibility was so bad, I thought the race might not be held,” Girardelli said. “Then, when they said we would race, I had only 20 minutes to prepare myself mentally for the soft snow. It had been hard in all of the training runs, so adjustments had to be made in technique. I don’t think Pirmin was able to do it as well as I did.”

With snow continuing to fall into Friday night, the course is expected to be soft again for the regular men’s downhill--if the race goes off as scheduled. The forecast calls for more blowing and drifting snow, heavy at times, although the temperatures remain considerably above the below-zero readings in Denver, on the other side of the Front Range.