McKinney Out for World Cup Season

Tamara McKinney, the top U.S. woman skier, is out for the World Cup season after breaking her left leg in a training spill, a team official said today.

“It’s a tragedy for her and a tragedy for the team,” U.S. women’s Coach Paul Major said. “She already cried three buckets of tears yesterday.”

It was the third left leg fracture for McKinney, who was preparing for her 12th World Cup season, and what she has said would be her last. She is the winningest U.S. skier ever, and has captured 18 World Cup events.

McKinney, 27, was nearly down a giant slalom training run Wednesday when she slipped on her inside ski, bounced on her shoulder and somersaulted. She smashed into the snow with her left leg extended so it took the full impact, Major said.

A helicopter rushed her to a hospital at Visp, Switzerland, where doctors diagnosed a bone fracture just below the left knee.

“She will definitely be out for the whole season,” Major said by telephone from this Swiss Alps resort.

“It will take 12 weeks for the bones to heal. She’s stabilized, but it’s a difficult injury and there is some bleeding,” he said.

McKinney is due to be on a plane Friday morning to Reno, where team surgeon Dr. Richard Steadman will operate on her.

Last February, McKinney recovered from a weak 1987-88 season to win the gold medal at the Alpine Ski World Championships in Vail, Colo. She won bronze in the slalom.

She is the only U.S. woman to have won the overall ski World Cup, in 1983, and finished 11th in last season’s general standings.

McKinney, of Olympic Valley, Calif., had said she would retire from the circuit after this winter. Known as a slalom specialist, she had focused on practicing giant slalom.

“She had done so much hard work this year and was really ready for the races in a month,” Major said.

McKinney made no immediate decision about her racing future, Major said.