THE OLYMPICS / WINTER GAMES AT ALBERTVILLE : SKIING / WORLD CUP : Twardokens, Happy to Be on Skis, Gets on Team

Eva Twardokens qualified for the U.S. Olympic team in Alpine skiing Sunday, just a few days after failing to make the grade in basketball.

She finished 13th behind winner Monika Maierhofer of Austria in the World Cup slalom, which made her the top American. But more important, she said: “I was just happy to be able to complete the race. I hadn’t skied since last Wednesday, when I hurt my right knee playing basketball. This was my type of hill, and being in the top 15 gave me a big jump forward.”

A big jump while playing forward is what caused all the trouble--and concern among U.S. ski team coaches.

“It was just a little game of two-on-two,” said Twardokens, 26, of Santa Cruz. “I went up for the ball and came down hard. Something happened to my hamstring, but I showed today I can ski with the problem. The knee felt fine on the first run but got a little sore on the second.”

Twardokens plans to join teammates Diann Roffe and Edith Thys in Germany this week for a little R&R; with Roffe’s in-laws at Bad Wiessee; then the three will rejoin the team Friday night in Geneva for the trip to Meribel, site of the Olympic Alpine women’s events.

“I still feel good about my chances,” Twardokens said. “And right now, I’m totally focused on the Olympics. I’m not looking any further. I should be OK by then, if I don’t slip in the bathtub in the meantime.”

Her time Sunday was 2.50 seconds slower than Maierhofer’s total of 1:13.99, but as Twardokens said, at least she finished.

Vreni Schneider of Switzerland, who will be seeking to repeat her 1988 Olympic gold-medal double at Calgary when the XVIth Winter Games open next Saturday at Albertville, missed a gate on her first run, climbed back and skied through it, but was too slow to make the cut for the second run.

An even more disappointing mishap befell Julie Parisien of Auburn, Me., who was fifth after the first run, then straddled a gate halfway down the second course and was unable to finish.

Pernilla Wiberg of Sweden placed second, 0.47 of a second behind Maierhofer, with Annelise Coberger of New Zealand another 0.02 back. Austrian Sabine Ginther, who won Saturday’s downhill, was ninth in the slalom and earned 100 points in the combined scoring to boost her World Cup overall total to 746, moving her into third place behind Petra Kronberger, also of Austria, who has 813, and Schneider, who has 751.

Twardokens, who changed into a Michael Jordan sweat shirt at the team’s hotel, said her parents, George and Halina Twardokens, will stay home and watch the Olympics on television in Reno, where her father is a professor at the University of Nevada.

“My father was an Olympic fencer for Poland in 1956 (before defecting to the United States in ‘58) and he said I could concentrate better if they weren’t around to distract me,” she said.

At St. Gervais, France, Didrik Marksten of Norway leaped into the pre-Olympic spotlight by winning a men’s giant slalom, beating Italian star Alberto Tomba in the final World Cup race before the Olympics.

Marksten, 20, whose previous best finish in a World Cup race was sixth, started 39th in the first run and finished third. He was runner-up in the second run and had a total time of 2 minutes 43.32 seconds.

The U.S. Olympic Alpine team of 11 women and 11 men was named late Sunday after the final tuneup races at Grindelwald and St. Gervais, France.

Notably missing was Kristi Terzian, formerly of Sanger, Calif., and now living in Park City, Utah, who injured both knees in successive seasons and was unable to regain her form in time to be competitive for the Winter Games.

She left Grindelwald quietly before this weekend’s races.

The team:

Men--AJ Kitt of Rochester, N.Y.; Tommy Moe of Palmer, Alaska; Kyle Rasmussen of Angels Camp, Calif.; Reggie Crist of Ketchum, Ida.; Matt Grosjean of Steamboat Springs, Colo.; Joe Levins of White Bear Lake, Minn.; Paul Casey Puckett and Chris Puckett, both of Wheatridge, Colo.; Kyle Wieche of South Lake Tahoe; Rob Parisien of Auburn, Me., and Jeff Olson of Bozeman, Mont.

Women--Diann Roffe of Potsdam, N.Y.; Julie Parisien of Auburn, Me.; Eva Twardokens of Santa Cruz; Hilary Lindh of Juneau, Alaska; Edith Thys of Squaw Valley; Krista Schmidinger of Lee, Mass.; Kristin Krone of Truckee, Calif.; Wendy Fisher of Incline Village, Nev.; Heidi Voelker of Pittsfield, Mass.; Monique Pelletier of Hood River, Ore., and Megan Gerety of Anchorage, Alaska.