‘94 WINTER OLYMPICS / Lillehammer : Parisien Fails in Slalom, Says She Might Retire at 22 : Skiing: American cites the death of her brother in December of ’92 and adds that she is “just ruined right now.”

Julie Parisien, despite the emotional gulf separating her from her best days, somehow felt obligated to win Saturday’s slalom, improbable as her chances were.

Obligated to her dead brother, Jean-Paul; to her sponsors, to herself, to her country.

She actually feared no one would speak to her if she lost, even as defeat loomed as inevitable. Parisien was a shell of the world-class racer she once was, yet there were moments when she still felt like a champion in her race suit.

Maybe, Parisien thought, she could fool herself for a minute or two.

She couldn’t.

After posting the 18th-fastest time in the first run, Parisien was disqualified when she straddled the third gate from the finish in the second run at Hafjell.

The reality crushed her. Parisien always had an Olympic pain partner in Dan Jansen, the hard-luck American speedskater who shared the burden of winning a medal for a lost sibling.

Jansen won his gold last week.

Parisien is alone again.

“I’m concerned about my own (mental) health a little bit,” Parisien said afterward. “Ski racing right now hasn’t been important to me, since my brother died. It’s tough to be out there when it’s not important to you.”

There was minimal emotion in her voice, no tears.

Jean-Paul, Parisien’s older brother and mentor, was killed Dec. 17, 1992, when a drunken driver sideswiped his car and forced it into a tree just a few miles from the family’s home in Auburn, Me.

Parisien now says she came back too racing too soon, only weeks after his death. It might have been the frustration talking, but Parisien, 22, said she might now retire from World Cup ski racing, or at least take a long sabbatical.

She said she might enroll at the University of Colorado and try the Pro Circuit to make some spending money.

“Right now I’m at a point, nothing really matters to me except my own--not to sound mystical--but my own spiritual health,” she said. “It’s just ruined right now. Crushed. My whole family is. That’s just the way it is.

“Looking back, it’s the Dan Jansens and I who have suffered by going back into competition, having to go back the next day and having to race. I don’t think I gave myself enough time. I’ve overestimated my strength.

“I put too much store in this race, I really wanted to do something, the final hurrah, whatever.”

Parisien has won more World Cup races, three, than any other current U.S. Alpine member. Before her emotional crash, she was considered a gold-medal contender in slalom.

But isn’t it time to get out of a sport when you’re standing in the starting gate, as she was Saturday, thinking, “Wow, I don’t know about this”?

Parisien wondered.

“It’s the absolute worst thing you can do,” she said. “I’m kind of ashamed at the fact that I’ve thought that way. Because any athlete who feels that way should get the hell out and give someone else a chance.”

Every contemplation was tied to that Dec. 17. She thought about quitting last Christmas, around the one-year anniversary of J.P.’s death. The skier who led the first slalom run at the 1992 Albertville games, only to lose out on a medal by .05 seconds, was suddenly skiing vacant, posting mediocre results, when she finished at all.

Her top finish this season is eighth.

“It’s been coming on for quite a while,” she said. “A year and a half now. I don’t blame it on anything, I don’t say because my brother died, my motivation is gone. I do this for me, too. But maybe I realize that it’s not making me the person I want to be. You never know. I might be hit by a drunk driver tomorrow, and I don’t want feel this way if it’s my last day.”

Parisien criticized the U.S. ski team, claiming it does not know how to produce world-class athletes. This, as the U.S. concludes one of its most successful Olympics ever in Alpine, with two gold and two silver medals.

“I think the ski team needs to revamp their whole structure and do some major changes, with the way they manage athletes,” Parisien said. “The coaching staff, they need to think about us a little more.”

Yet it was Parisien, in a break from team policy, who was allowed to train with a personal coach earlier this season, a plan that was scrapped in December.

Her comments did not sit well with Paul Major, the U.S. Alpine director.

“We’ve walked away with two gold and two silver and an athlete starts criticizing the team?” Major said. “She should look at herself in the mirror. That’s the place she needs to begin.”

Parisien had only kind words to say about Major, but he thought that a bit incongruous.

“I’m the Alpine director,” Major said. “I should be included (in the criticism). I’m the management. Who’s there to blame? If there’s bad results, I’m the one to blame. And I’ll take full credit for not skiing well today. But I’ll take some credit for those golds.”

Major was eager to speak with Parisien for further clarification.

She wants to ski on the Pro Circuit?

“It’s for has-beens and people that never made it on the World Cup,” he said. “She could be an overall champion on the World Cup. You can’t just take one race and turn that into your career.”

Major, who also serves as the women’s coach, understands the emotional burden she carries.

He wants Parisien back, but warned that leaving the program was sort of like jumping off a tiger. There is no easy way back on.

“She’s as good as Pernilla (Wiberg) or Vreni (Schneider), but you’ve got to meet that standard,” he said. “And right now, that standard is very high.”

Major said Parisien was not in great physical condition this season, but he wrote it off to extenuating circumstances.

He agrees that Parisien should take some time off, but said she needs to get her priorities straight.

“If you want to be on that board in the top three, you pretty much have to give 100% of your life to it,” he said, pointing to the Olympic scoreboard. “You can’t sort of say, ‘Oh, I’m going to college on the side.’ She’s talented, she can go to college and be successful in academics. But the three girls up there (on the podium) aren’t worrying about their academics right now.”

Parisien isn’t sure of her next step.

“I may be talking out of my armpit,” she said. “I’m so volatile.”

She might ski at the World Cup races at Mammoth Mountain early next month. After that, it’s anyone’s guess.

“To not do it when you know you can be at the top, it’s a joke, a waste of talent,” Parisien said. “I know that. I need a break. It’s so hard to explain. All of this isn’t as important as it used to be.”