SKIING / CHRIS DUFRESNE : If They See It, They Will Come

Skiers are skeptics.

Local ski operators swore the recent heat wave was not affecting man-made ski conditions at Big Bear, no matter that it felt like July.

Last Friday, to convince the naysayers, the promotional department at Bear Mountain instructed its pitchman to hold up that day’s newspaper on its live daily television spot to prove the resort wasn’t using old footage.

“We’ve had great skiing for a month,” Libby Coleman, a Bear Mountain spokeswoman, said Wednesday. “But people have this myth about man-made snow, that it’s something different. But it’s all water and air.”

Unfortunately, most people need to see snow in the mountains before they invest the drive time.

No wonder local operators are delighted with the recent winter storm that dropped up to a foot of snow in the local mountains.

“It looks like winter now,” Greg Ralph, a Snow Summit spokesman, said. “It makes a huge difference. The earthquake didn’t hurt us nearly as much as the warm weather. Warm weather killed us, we were dying off. The people that come up, we do exit surveys when they leave and they say, ‘I had no idea it was this good.’ ”

Despite the fact that conditions are not much improved over last week, Ralph said business is up about 25%.

“You can’t really blame them,” Ralph said of the skiers. “They want to see snow on the side of the road, they want to put on chains, they want traffic. But it’s not necessary. They could have come up last week and had just as much fun.”

This week’s storm did provide enough new snow to reopen some beginner terrain at Mt. Baldy and Ski Sunrise in Wrightwood, which had been closed because of lack of snow.

However, while Mt. Waterman and Kratka Ridge received about six inches, the resorts are unable to operate. Lynn Newcomb, owner of Mt. Waterman, said the resort will need another foot of snow to open.

*

After a slow start, World Cup overall champion Marc Girardelli is back on track and making a run at his unprecedented sixth overall title and, possibly, his first Olympic gold medal.

Girardelli, the Austrian who skis for Luxembourg, won his first race of the season last weekend, a super-giant slalom at Wengen, Switzerland, and moved into second place in the overall standings behind Norway’s Kjetil Andre Aamodt.

The victory was the 43rd of Girardelli’s World Cup career, second only to the retired Ingemar Stenmark of Sweden, who won 86 races.

Though Girardelli says winning an Olympic gold medal is not important to him, the circuit’s best all-around skier for the last decade appears poised to strike in any event at the upcoming Olympic Games at Lillehammer.

Girardelli, who began as a strong technical skier and later developed his speed skills, is skiing better right now in downhill and super-G than in the slalom.

His super-G victory at Wengen followed a second-place finish in the Wengen downhill last Saturday.

Ski Notes

The Olympic freestyle team, named last weekend at Lake Placid, N.Y., is led by Donna Weinbrecht, defending Olympic gold medalist in moguls, and Trace Worthington, the reigning men’s World Cup overall champion. The men’s team also includes aerial specialists Eric Bergoust, Kris Fedderson and mogul specialists Troy Benson, Craig Rodman and Sean Smith. The women’s team also includes moguls specialists Ann Battelle, Liz McIntyre and aerialists Tracy Evans, Kriste Porter and Nikki Stone. Worthington injured right knee ligaments three weeks ago but returned last week to finish third at Lake Placid, an indication that he should be ready for the Olympics. Weinbrecht extended her unbeaten World Cup streak to five last weekend with a victory at Lake Placid.

With the Olympics approaching, American AJ Kitt showed some signs of life when he finished 12th last weekend at the Wengen downhill. It was Kitt’s best finish since his 11th place at Val Gardena, Italy, before Christmas. “I’m on my way back,” Kitt said after the race. “I feel I’m skiing well. It’s not a great result--I’m not on the podium and that’s where I want to be--but it’s getting better.” America had four skiers finish in the top 30 at Wengen: Kitt, Tommy Moe (19th), Kyle Rasmussen (26th) and Craig Thrasher (30th).

The Jeep/Eagle Tournament of Champions Ski Series concludes today at Heavenly, Calif., with 1976 Olympic gold medalist Franz Klammer seeking his first overall championship. The race will be televised by CBS this Sunday at 11 a.m. Klammer leads the men’s division in the series, which matches former star skiers in handicapped races. Norway’s Toril Forland leads the women’s division.