THE OLYMPICS / WINTER GAMES AT ALBERTVILLE : Weinbrecht Weathers Storm to Win First Freestyle Gold : Moguls: American comes from second place with strong performance. France’s Monod falters on final run.
Everyone said Donna Weinbrecht was a cinch to win a gold medal for the United States. Everyone except Donna Weinbrecht, that is.
Not that she didn’t want to.
“After I finished second in the eliminations, I became completely focused,” she said here Thursday. “I’d been impressed by the other girls and knew any one of them could win. But I also suddenly realized how much I really wanted it.”
And she got it: the first gold medal of the XVIth Olympic Winter Games for American skiers, in an event given medal status for the first time--the freestyle moguls.
“It’s a dream come true,” Weinbrecht said. “I hope it means as much to the country as an Alpine gold medal would.”
Since a gold medal in any of the Alpine events seems remote at this point, hers will certainly do. To win it, she had to ski down a steep slope pocked with moguls, or bumps, in a driving snowstorm, displaying two airborne maneuvers along the way, and outperform seven other finalists, among them Raphaelle Monod, the darling of the home crowd of about 20,000.
Surprisingly, Monod had finished ahead of Weinbrecht in Wednesday’s elimination round, with 24.09 points to the American’s 23.48.
“I think maybe it was just as well that I came in second then,” Weinbrecht said. “It meant I skied seventh in the finals, instead of last, and also it got me going.”
Asked what she had done Wednesday night to psych herself up, Weinbrecht said: “I read some letters from kids back in my hometown, West Milford, and from throughout New Jersey. They all told me I had to be hungry and really want to win.”
Thursday, to the driving beat of rock music on the loudspeakers, the 26-year-old Weinbrecht bombed down the hill, bouncing from bump to bump, in 40.51 seconds, not the fastest time of the day, but the judges thought her turns were magnificent and her aerial tricks--a spread-eagle on top and a double near the bottom--more than adequate. The three components computed to a score of 23.69 points.
Americans lining the course cheered and waved the Stars and Stripes, but they were quickly drowned out by the thousands of French spectators shouting encouragement to Monod, the final starter.
Monod, 23, the 1989 world mogul champion who has been second banana to Weinbrecht for the last three seasons, looked like a winner as she attacked the first few bumps, outspread Weinbrecht on her first leap into the air, then continued in excellent form until she suddenly lost it. About two-thirds of the way along, Monod came down short of a bump, twisted awkwardly and was thrown off balance. She could not recover in time to take the next bump cleanly and, after a half-hearted twister, gave up.
Perhaps the glory of France was too big a burden for Monod, who finished eighth after almost being assured of a medal, but she tried to shrug it off, saying: “Competition has always been a game for me--sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. This time, it’s a pity because I missed a medal. I’m disappointed, especially for all my supporters. All this emotion could only help me, and I made a mistake. It’s a shame.”
Elizaveta Kojevnikova of the Commonwealth of Independent States took the silver medal with 23.50 points, Stine Lise Hattestad of Norway the bronze with 23.04.
But Weinbrecht, the 1991 world champion and winner of 24 World Cup mogul events, including seven of eight this season, had feared Monod the most.
“When I finished my run, I knew she could still beat me,” the 5-foot-4, 120-pound, self-taught freestyler said. “But all I could do was wait for her to come down. Then it became the most beautiful victory of my life.”
Her life has been skiing since 1985, when she moved full time to her family’s vacation home at Killington, Vt. This was shortly after her fashion-design studies ceased because the school she was attending in New Jersey had gone out of business.
Working as a waitress at a Vermont establishment called the Pasta Pot by night and skiing by day, Weinbrecht soon devoted her full attention to bashing moguls.
“I fell in love with freestyle skiing because I discovered that it gives me freedom of expression,” she said. “My mom thought I was turning into a ski bum, but once I started competing, she became very supportive.”
After earning a place on the U.S. freestyle team in 1987 with virtually no coaching, Weinbrecht began to improve under the guidance of then-coach Park Smalley, who now calls her “the best female mogul skier in history, and better than half of the men.”
That’s exactly how Weinbrecht likes to be measured--against the men. Even as a girl, she preferred to play ice hockey and other sports with the boys, and now she maintains: “If the men can do something, why can’t I? I want to do what the guys do.”
She was World Cup rookie of the year in 1988, losing the mogul title to Monod by just one point, then won her first event on the tour in 1989, and was on her way.
Looking at her record, Ski Racing magazine calculated last summer that Weinbrecht “has a 95% chance” of winning an Olympic medal, adding: “She has a 71% probability of making it gold.”
Now, they can make that 100%, but she never thought it would be easy.
As U.S. freestyle Coach Wayne Hilterbrand once said: “She doesn’t count her chickens before they’re hatched. . . . She realizes she could get knocked off at any time . . . and doesn’t take anything for granted.”
That is, perhaps, until Thursday, when much of France suddenly fell silent for at least a few moments.
