Maier’s Death Rekindles Old Debate

It can only be hoped that Austrian Ulrike Maier’s violent death last Saturday on the downhill course at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, will raise the decibels on what has been a lopsided debate between racers and the International Ski Federation (FIS) over skier rights.

To mostly deaf ears, World Cup racers have been complaining about their lack of involvement in course design and safety.

As it stands, FIS, the sport’s heavy-handed governing body, basically lays down the law: If it determines that a race course is safe, skiers are obliged to hurl their bodies down hills, sometimes to their death.

It remains unclear whether the course on which Maier--a two-time world champion and mother of a 4-year-old daughter--met her fate was in any way responsible.

Course officials at Garmisch maintain that Maier crashed on one of the safest portions of the downhill. Rain earlier in the week froze the course and made it extremely fast. Typically, downhill racers prefer a hard, fast track.

Maier crashed, it appeared, when her right ski stuck in a patch of softer snow and caused her to lose balance.

Some skiers had a different definition of safe .

“It was like sheer ice, like trying to survive your way down,” Krista Schmidinger of the United States said in a statement released afterward. Schmidinger was the next skier down the hill after Maier.

American Picabo Street objected to the use of PTX3, a chemical spread on the course earlier in the week to keep the snow from melting. Street said it made the surface uneven, slick in some spots and sticky in others.

“It’s really getting out of hand,” said Hilary Lindh, winner of Wednesday’s downhill at Sierra Nevada, Spain. “The (FIS) are so desperate to get races off, for the money involved and the TV coverage, and sponsors, they’re almost putting that in front of everything else. I hope the point has been made.”

FIS officials have suggested slowing courses down, a plan that skiers would reject. They want the courses safer, not slower.

“Downhill is supposed to be fast,” Lindh said. “If not, it’s got to be called something else.”

Under the best conditions, downhill racing at 60 m.p.h. is a crap shoot. It’s a risk all skiers accept.

“It’s a dangerous sport,” Bob Beattie, TV analyst and former U.S. ski team coach, said this week from Aspen, Colo.

No one argues the point. Given ever-changing weather, creating a race course to satisfy everyone would be next to impossible.

But shouldn’t the skiers at least have some voice in the matter?

If a large chunk of pavement came loose from the oval at the Indianapolis 500, but organizers said go ahead and drive around it, would drivers object?

The question begs, How would skiers handle more rights?

“It’s hard, because we’re not objective sometimes,” Lindh said. “At the same time, we’re the ones going down the hill; we should have a little input.”

All skiers want is some consistency, a standard by which courses are measured.

What they get is a double standard.

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The two faces of FIS: Last Saturday’s race continued even after Maier’s tragic fall. Earlier this month, at Altenmarkt, Austria, FIS officials waited until 26 of 32 racers crashed near the finish area before halting the race.

Yet, last year, a downhill race at Aspen, in which American AJ Kitt was leading, was abruptly canceled because of a small but fixable hole, according to skiers, that developed on the course--a course designed not by skiers but by organizers.

Given the generally poor snow conditions throughout Europe this winter, getting a course in shape is admittedly no easy chore.

But despite almost perfect early-season racing conditions in America, the FIS plods on through Europe on sheets of ice and bedrock.

Beattie, who helped found the World Cup, said the FIS generally does a good job in preparing World Cup courses. But is good good enough?

Years ago, when Beattie formed his own professional ski tour, he handed all responsibility for safety and course concerns to the racers.

Shifting early-season races to North America would also solve a lot of problems, but one must never forget that the World Cup is a circuit operated by and for Europeans.

“It’s tough,” Beattie said of racing overseas. “(The elevation) just isn’t high enough. They don’t have as good man-made snow (as in this country), and often it’s not cold enough to make snow. People who ski at Mammoth would have a hell of a time skiing in Europe.”

Beattie said conditions in Europe typically get better in February and March.

So, naturally, after the Olympics, the World Cup will move to North America for events that include women’s races at Mammoth Mountain and the World Cup Finals at Vail, Colo.

The death of Ulli Maier will only further galvanize skiers.

Last spring, a group of the top women’s skiers boycotted training runs on the Olympic downhill course at Hafjell, Norway, claiming the course was too easy.

The protest led to a change of venue. The women’s downhill will now be run at Kvitfjell, site of the men’s race.

It is perhaps too harsh to hang the death of Maier on course officials. Death, sadly, is part of the skiing game.

That said, giving skiers a stake in the decision making would, if nothing else, provide some peace of mind when the gates open.

As it is, Ulli Maier knows a different peace now.

Skiing Notes

Friday’s storm has made for the best ski conditions of the season in the local mountains. The Big Bear resorts and Mountain High in Wrightwood, operating most of the winter on the strength of man-made snow, have received up to a foot of fresh powder. . . . Mt. Baldy reported eight to 12 inches of new snow, allowing it to open one advanced run from the top on Chair No. 3, with other runs due to follow. . . . Big Air Green Valley, the snowboard-only area in Running Springs, resumed operation last weekend and reports 90% of its runs are open, the exception being the Half-pipe, which could open soon. . . . Ski Sunrise in Wrightwood has also reopened and is operating beginner and intermediate runs while offering a discounted lift-ticket of $20 this weekend. . . . Mt. Waterman and Kratka Ridge, both in the Angeles National Forest, report that they are close to opening but need a few more inches of snow. . . . Chains were required Friday on most mountain roads at the 4,000-foot elevation.

Chris T. Dropps, the USA Pro Moguls Champion, will compete today at Snow Summit in Big Bear, this week’s stop on the Budweiser Mogul Series. The event will be televised by ESPN at 10:30 a.m., PST, on Feb. 13. . . . Wrightwood will stage its Winter Carnival next Saturday. The schedule of activities--ski and snowboard races, ice sculptures, sled races and more--will take place at Wrightwood Village locations and at Mountain High and Ski Sunrise. . . . For the first time in four seasons, two Americans met in a Women’s Pro Ski Tour final last weekend at Keystone, Colo. Lynda McGehee of Boulder, Colo., defeated rookie Sally Knight of Waitsfield, Vt., to win the slalom of the $30,000 event.

How big is cross-country skiing in Norway? An estimated 70,000 lined the trails of a recent World Cup race in that nation. The first Olympic event to sell out was not figure skating, but the men’s 4x10-kilometer relay. It is estimated that thousands of fans will sleep in the woods to secure spots along the Olympic cross-country trails . . . But don’t expect the Norwegian Alpine team to be a flop, either. Last weekend, Kjetil Andre Aamodt won his first World Cup downhill at Chamonix, France, while Norway took the top three spots in the combined, with Aamodt winning.

The U.S. Olympic Alpine team will be named Sunday. Paul Major, U.S. Alpine director, will make the announcement from Oslo. The most notable racer on the U.S. bubble is 1992 Olympic giant slalom silver medalist Diann Roffe-Steinrotter, who is fighting for a spot in super-G and GS. A maximum of 22 U.S. skiers will be chosen, with no more than 14 of one gender. . . . Hilary Lindh’s downhill victory Wednesday at Sierra Nevada, Spain, was the first for an American woman on the World Cup circuit since 1986, when Pam Fletcher won at Vail.