SKIING / CHRIS DUFRESNE : Moe Gives Book a Surprise Twist

Before last weekend, our only complaint about Mike Wilson’s new book about the U.S. downhill team had been that it was written about the U.S. team and not the Austrians.

Wilson’s book, “Right on the Edge of Crazy,” provides an interesting look into the highly skilled and dangerous world of the downhill skier.

The problem is, the U.S. team that Wilson chronicled through a World Cup season and the 1992 Olympics, with the exception of AJ Kitt, was not very good. He takes you inside the heads of skiers who face their demons as they stand in the starting gate of the world’s most dangerous downhill course, at Kitzbuhel, Austria.

But, in the end, the Americans usually ended up back in the pack or in the hospital.

We love winners here in America and, unfortunately, this isn’t exactly Horatio Alger stuff.

Wilson lets us in on the strategies approaching a downhill, the hopes and fears. Readers will not question the courage of Americans who step up to those starting gates. You root for them to overcome skiing history and the obstacles, but they always seem to find ways to let you down.

Chapters typically ended like this:

“Reggie (Crist) caught an edge and nearly tipped over in the flats. . . . Tommy (Moe) was mediocre, Jeff (Olson) just bad. Eric (Keck) finished 60th, only to learn he had been disqualified for leaving the starting gate too early. . . . Skip Merrick, a young kid, was 62nd; Steve Porino, who almost tipped over in the flat section on the bottom, was 63rd; and Todd Kelly , another young guy, was 67th, five seconds behind (Switzerland’s Franz) Heinzer.”

Sixty-seventh? Hey, how about a book on the Jamaican bobsled team?

In the book, Kitt is the only serious American threat and the only skier who seems to have what it takes to compete with the Europeans. He remains the only American to win a World Cup downhill since Bill Johnson in 1984.

Last weekend in Whistler, Canada, however, Moe went a long way toward closing the U.S. credibility gap on the World Cup circuit with his second-place finish in a World Cup downhill.

And in the super-giant slalom last Sunday, Moe, 23, of Palmer, Alaska, finished 12th after starting in the 47th position.

Moe had never before finished in the top 10 in a World Cup downhill and his best super-G finish had been 20th.

This was exciting news for the U.S. ski team. In the finish area Sunday, super-G winner Guenther Mader of Austria said something amazing when his teammates began to congratulate him after his run.

“No, it’s not official yet,” he said. “We have to wait for Tommy Moe to ski yet.”

This is about as good as American tributes get on the World Cup circuit.

If Moe has really found his groove, it might give the United States a legitimate 1-2 downhill punch heading into the 1994 Olympic Games at Lillehammer, Norway.

Suddenly, as a winner, Moe becomes one of the more intriguing characters in Wilson’s book, a former World Junior super-G champion who spent much of his youth under the influence of marijuana.

If Moe wins an Olympic medal, the name for Wilson’s sequel is set:

Tommy Moe: Right on The Edge of Hazy.

The letter, part II: After Julie Parisien’s brother died in an automobile accident last December, former U.S. ski team star Tamara McKinney wrote her a letter of condolence.

McKinney, who lost two brothers to tragic deaths, has not mailed the letter, saying she wants to wait for the right time.

Parisien did not know about the letter until recently, but said she had a premonition in January.

“I had a dream that she’d written me this letter and she didn’t want to send it for some reason,” Parisien said recently. “I was thinking, ‘I hope she sends it, please send it.’ And I woke up thinking, ‘Wow, I really hope I get a letter from her.’ ”

Parisien has used her brother’s death as inspiration, winning a silver in the slalom at the World Championships and winning the combined title at the recent U.S. Alpine Championships at Winter Park, Colo.

She is looking forward to meeting with McKinney--eventually.

“It’ll be really good to talk to her about it,” Parisien said. “It’s hard to be anything but philosophical about it. I’m just pushing the emotion away right now. I can’t afford to do that to myself in the middle of the ski season. You have to maintain some resilience.

“I think it would be hard to talk to Tamara right now. I think I’ll talk to her in the spring or the summer, because I know it’s going to bring up a lot of emotions in both of us.”

Parisien says that her late brother, Jean Paul, is watching over her. She does not believe that he is satisfied with her recent performances.

“He knows what’s going on,” she said. “He knows we’re dealing with this great tragedy and everything. I feel that he knows this. Maybe I’m fooling myself, but I can feel him saying, ‘Yeah, that’s pretty darn good for what you’ve been through the last couple of months, but you’re tougher than that even, dammit, you can overcome that even. Come on.’ ”

Skiing Notes

Petra Kronberger, the Austrian skier who retired earlier this year at 23, is one of six Olympic gold medalists who will receive the Amateur Athletic Foundation’s World trophy for athletic excellence. The award will be presented Thursday at AAF headquarters in Los Angeles.