SKIING / CHRIS DUFRESNE : Johnson Still Full Speed Ahead

A decade after his stunning downhill victory in the 1984 Olympic Games at Sarajevo, Bill Johnson’s opinions still form into words at the starting gate, his larynx, then blast out from his mouth with the recklessness of runaway skis.

Johnson is 33 now, a father and home builder, but beneath that veneer beats the heart of the wayward downhill racer who abhorred authority and won the gold medal on his own skis, on his own terms.

At Sarajevo, he stole a page from Joe Namath and brazenly guaranteed his victory beforehand, against improbable odds. No American had won an Olympic downhill before. No American has won one since.

Johnson never bought into the team concept in what he knew to be an individual sport, which did not endear him to the U.S. Ski Team brass. He remains bitter about not being allowed to defend his downhill title at the 1988 Calgary Games.

“I think it was an Olympic mistake,” he says.

Johnson didn’t deserve to go based on World Cup performances that season, but says he was still America’s best chance for a medal.

“In an Olympic race, I was going to go to one more level,” he maintains. “The guys on our team didn’t have that level. There was no other level for them to go to. It wasn’t like people were really stunning the world on our team.”

Johnson, plagued by back and knee problems, went kicking and screaming into retirement in 1990, a few weeks shy of his 30th birthday.

Then, he did what most former skiing stars do: He became ambassador and resident “Big Cheese” at a ski resort--Crested Butte, Colo., in his case--and did some celebrity racing.

He settled down, married, had a son, Ryan. This good life was tragically interrupted when his 18-month-old son drowned in the family hot tub. But Johnson put his head down and drove back against the wind. He and his wife Gina quickly had another son, Nicholas Ryan, and are expecting another baby in April.

Johnson continues to poke the skiing establishment with a cattle prod.

He became a regular on the legends tour, the Jeep/Eagle Tournament of Champions, but grew tired of racing against old-timers in heavily handicapped slalom races.

“With the handicap system, it was really subject to scrutiny,” Johnson says, “and any sports fan can see right through that. My clock started 10 seconds before I left the gate.”

No surprise that Johnson wasn’t invited back this year.

Yet, he still had the itch to race fast, like in the old days, but needed the format.

So, he created one.

In what he believes will be the start of something big, Johnson has gone out on another limb to become point man in reuniting some of the all-time downhillers for the Jeep King of the Mountain race at Aspen Highlands, Colo., next Saturday.

The field will include Austria’s Franz Klammer, the 1976 Olympic downhill champion, and Switzerland’s Pirmin Zurbriggen, the 1988 Olympic gold medalist.

And, of course, Bill Johnson. A total of $85,000 will be awarded--$25,000 going to the winner in a no-handicap, no-nonsense downhill chase.

May the best old man win.

Others expected to compete are 1980 Olympic bronze medalist Steve Podborski and Todd Brooker, both of Canada; Doug Lewis of the United States, and former world speed skiing champion Franz Weber of Austria.

How did Johnson assemble such a field?

“The $25,000, that’s what attracted Zurbriggen to come over,” Johnson says.

Johnson hopes the inaugural event will spur a separate professional downhill tour, operated by and for skiers. In the coming years, he hopes to build the King of the Mountain event into a 10-stop, worldwide tour.

Skiers will also compete in team competition, sort of a Davis Cup approach, with countries competing for what Johnson has already determined will be called the “Klammer Cup,” in honor of the great Austrian downhiller.

“This is really an opportunity to do what we wanted to do 10 years ago, when we tried to break off from the FIS (International Ski Federation),” Johnson explains.

World Cup skiers have long been dismayed with the FIS, ski racing’s governing body, and have demanded more say in determining the ground rules for their dangerous sport.

On Johnson’s circuit, skiers, not bureaucrats, will set and examine the course.

Johnson claims to have formed the World Ski Federation and is talking about a skier’s union, “so we’d be in control like we’ve never been before.”

There’s no telling where this might lead.

“It’s a seniors’ thing now, only because we need the names to get it off the ground,” he says.

Johnson envisions opening the downhill races to all comers, with qualifying to weed out the weak.

No one is saying it yet, but if the circuit gains credibility and builds momentum, allowing for more skier input while offering better prize money, it would be interesting to see how fast World Cup skiers would bolt the established FIS for a rival tour.

Leave it to Johnson to stir it up again.

For now, Johnson says he only wants to get back into competitive racing, make some money and, of course, have some fun.

He doesn’t miss the grind of the World Cup circuit, but yearns to race again against the great Europeans, many of whom had turned their noses to the upstart American.

Klammer, the greatest downhiller, once called Johnson a “nose-picker” who would get his comeuppance.

But Johnson says his gold-medal run and subsequent World Cup victories at Aspen, Colo., and Whistler, Canada, pretty much sealed his place in downhill lore.

“I think I’ve gotten respect from them,” Johnson says. “I told them I would beat their butts and I did, no messing around. If they say, ‘Oh, that was an easy course,’ I say, ‘If it was so damn easy, why didn’t you win?’ Sure, (the Sarajevo course) wasn’t Kitzbuhel (in Austria), but it wasn’t a divisional downhill either. Everyone had the same course. They realized the victories at Aspen and Whistler kind of put the exclamation point on the whole thing. They knew I was a force to be reckoned with.”

Apparently, he still is.

Skiing Notes

The Jimmie Heuga Ski Express does not make its annual stop at Snow Summit until March 13, but organizers are asking participants to form their teams early. The Ski Express is a charity event benefiting the Jimmie Heuga Center in Avon, Colo. Jimmie Heuga, the 1964 Olympic bronze medalist in slalom, learned at 26 in 1970 that he had multiple sclerosis. Ten years ago, he founded the center to help MS sufferers manage the incurable disease through a special program of diet and exercise. . . . The center is funded primarily from donations raised from the Ski Express. To enter, participants must form a team of three, with at least one female, and raise a maximum of $1,000 through local sponsorships (family, friends or business). Teams will compete in a four-hour marathon and dual giant slalom, with the winners determined by total vertical feet skied, slalom performance and donations raised. The winning team will win an expenses-paid trip to Vail, Colo., in April for the National Finals. For more information, contact Suzette Ford at (714) 552-8555.

Bear Mountain in Big Bear was one of 20 U.S. ski resorts to be selected as a finalist for two environmental awards. Times Mirror Magazines, which publishes Ski, Skiing Trade News and Skiing, developed the awards to recognize resorts that “best incorporate environmental principles into their design and operation.” Winners will be announced in May.

Big Air Green Valley, the snowboarders-only park near Big Bear, has closed temporarily after a week of operations because of lack of snow. . . . . Mt. Waterman and Kratka Ridge in the San Gabriel Mountains are slowly building a snow base, but are not yet open.