SKIING / CHRIS DUFRESNE : New Approach Has Moe at New High

This time last year, Tommy Moe was tripping over his skis as he counted the days until the end of the year, if not his career.

Moe had tripped before, in a sense, but long gone were those blood-shot, bad-boy days in Alaska when he skied stoned on marijuana as a hot-shot junior circuit sensation.

Moe skied so well on dope at times he could wonder to himself, in December of 1992, about the merits of going straight.

Typical was his showing at Val d’Isere, France, in December, when he posted the second fastest intermediate time in a super-giant slalom before missing the next-to-last gate and going out.

“I hate being mediocre,” Moe recalls of his frustration.

Moe moped across Europe before and after Christmas, from Val Gardena, Italy, to St. Anton, Austria, but his heart really wasn’t in it. Nor were his skis, as finishes of 27th, 30th, 18th reflected.

He had been billed America’s next downhill star ever since 1986, when he was 15. But the years, and the AJ Kitts, were passing him by.

It came to a boil in January of 1993, on a trail going nowhere in Europe. Moe told U.S. Ski Team coaches he was going home to Palmer, Alaska. He needed time away.

He needed time with his father, Tom Moe Sr., who had knocked the juvenile delinquent out of him in 1986 with a summer of back-breaking labor in remote Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands.

This, after Tommy had been caught with a bag of marijuana and put on ski team probation.

Moe swears he’s smoked nothing but opponents since. His problems last year were mental, not drug-related.

Still, it killed him to walk out on the team.

“Probably the toughest decision I’ve had to make,” he says, “because for so many athletes it’s ingrained, race after race, that you have to keep trying, you have to go for it. But I was tired of racing.”

Moe went home, did some free skiing and soul-searching with his dad and brother, then met up with the U.S. team at the world championships in Morioka, Japan, in early February.

He’s been a different skier since. He finished fifth in downhill at the worlds, missing a medal by 0.11 of a second. Then, in his breakthrough race in late February, he was a second in a downhill at Whistler, Canada. Moe had six top-15 finishes in all, including a season-ending seventh place on the Olympic course in Kvitfjell, Norway.

“A lot of it is having enthusiasm about skiing,” Moe explains of his turnaround. “It makes a difference if you’re out there training hard and having a good time. At this level I’m not out there for 10th place. I want to win.”

Moe carried the momentum into this year’s Olympic season, the wheel coming full circle last weekend at Val d’Isere on the super-G course that plagued him a year ago.

A raging blizzard forced cancellation of Saturday’s downhill, but Moe awoke early Sunday morning and saw a clear sky of stars.

Moe broke from the gate and attacked the course, finishing third behind Austria’s Guenther Mader and Norway’s Kjetil Andre Aamodt.

It was the highest World Cup finish ever for a U.S. male in super-G, the best since Moe’s seventh last year at Whistler.

This has been a discipline in which Amercians had never been taken seriously. Now, with Moe back on track, it gives the U.S. another glimmer of medal hope with the Lillehammer Olympic Games fast approaching.

“Maybe it’s my time,” Moe says.

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Tomba alert: The negative ink had not yet dried on Italian presses when slalom star Alberto Tomba--vilified for his 17th place finish in Monday’s giant slalom at Val d’Isere--rebounded Tuesday with a slalom victory on home snow at Sestriere, Italy.

It was the second slalom victory in consecutive weeks for Tomba, 26.

Tomba’s 17th-place finish the day before was his worst GS result in four years.

“I’m always under fire when I do not win, and it’s unfair,” Tomba said of his critics after the race. “Yesterday, it was another day, on a course I did not like, which did not fit to me. Today, I was more aggressive, determined on a perfect track. It was not an easy win, and I am glad I won.”

Tomba has had his best slalom seasons in even-numbered years and appears to be on schedule as the 1994 Olympic Games approach.

With two victories this season, Tomba has already doubled his slalom total of a year ago, when he won only in Garmisch, Germany.

Tomba’s yearly victory totals in slalom: 1988 (four), 1989 (one), 1990 (three), 1991 (two), 1992 (four), 1993 (one).

However, his best year in GS came in 1991, when he won five World Cup events.

Tomba says his slalom results are better this year because he’s training harder in the discipline. He won gold in the GS and slalom in the 1988 Games and went gold-silver in the events in 1992.

Skiing Notes

This week’s storms padded snow totals for local resorts already open, but didn’t provide enough coverage to open areas without snowmaking. Despite cold temperatures and six to eight inches of new snow, neither Mt. Waterman or Krakta Ridge are able to open. Same goes for Big Air Green Valley, the snowboard-only area near Running Springs.

Mt. Baldy will open beginner trails today and hopes to open more terrain later in the week. Ski Sunrise in Wrightwood will also open some beginner trails today.

The Big Bear resorts and Mountain High in Wrightwood are in much better shape. Bear Mountain has eight lifts operating, Snow Summit seven and Snow Valley five. Mountain High West reports six inches of new powder.

Bear Mountain and Snow Summit are now operating at regular-season rates, with daily adult lift tickets costing $38 and $38.75, respectively. Snow Valley offers its early season rate of $30 until this weekend, after which prices go up to $37. Snow Valley offers night skiing for an additional $5 on an all-day lift ticket.

Mt. High also offers an early season rate of $29.75.

In the Sierra, June Mountain opens today while Mammoth, with a three-foot base, hopes to operate 25 chairs by the Christmas break.

The Lake Tahoe resorts were hit hard by the latest storms. Heavenly has had 32 inches of new snow since last Saturday and reports 60% of its trails are open.

More World Cup: The struggles of U.S. skiers Julie Parisien and Diann Roffe-Steinrotter this season have been softened by surprising performances by veterans Eva Twardokens and Heidi Voelker. Twardokens finished sixth in a giant slalom at Veysonnaz, Switzerland, last Saturday. Voelker, known more as a slalom skier, had a personal-best fifth-place finish in a GS at Tignes, France. Voelker has two top-10 finishes this season and has placed in the top 20 on two other occasions.

Jeremy Nobis, thought to be the U.S.’s top Olympic hope in GS, did not accompany teammates to Europe. Instead, the inconsistent Nobis stayed behind to train on his own in Colorado. . . . Donna Weinbrecht, battling back from a knee injury after winning the first Olympic gold medal awarded for freestyle moguls in 1992, won in the World Cup season opener last Saturday at Tignes, France. . . . Trace Worthington, a two-time World Cup overall freestyle champion, won the first aerial World Cup last Friday at Tignes.