SKIING / BOB LOCHNER : ‘Cowboy Kyle’ Digs In After First Victory

Barely 10 days after winning one of Europe’s classic downhill ski races, Kyle Rasmussen was digging ditches.

While he had been traipsing through the Alps with the U.S. ski team, staying at posh resorts, the floods had almost washed away California, where his wife, Linda, and their two young children had been holding down the family fort in the Sierra foothills.

“I got home Saturday night,” Rasmussen said this week from Angels Camp. “Watched the Super Bowl Sunday, then started digging a ditch to get the water out of the basement on Monday.”

The previous Saturday, he had been, unexpectedly, the toast of the Continent, starting No. 1 in the Lauberhorn downhill at Wengen, Switzerland, and finishing No. 1 as the Austrians, French, Swiss and Italians--not to mention U.S. teammate Tommy Moe--all fired their best shots and fell back.

“It was great,” Rasmussen said. “I caught everybody by surprise, but even the Austrian team, from a country where downhill is the national sport, got excited and congratulated me.

“When Tommy came down, he had no idea I was leading. He did a double take when he saw the scoreboard and ran over to me, yelling and screaming.”

Moe, the 1994 Olympic downhill champion who finished 11th, said afterward, “We’ve been friends on the team for a long time. I’ve always been in front of him. Now his time has come.”

And for the Rasmussen family, it’s about time. At 26, Kyle is a veteran of five years on the World Cup circuit but had never finished in the top 10 of a race until last season, when he did it twice in super-giant slalom. In retrospect, ’94 marked a turning point in his career, but even the week before his stunning victory, Rasmussen had wondered, at least fleetingly, if it might not be time to pack it in.

“It wasn’t like the media made it out,” he said. “I’d had a rotten weekend in the two downhills at Kitzbuehel (in Austria). I finished 54th in the first one and fell the next day. I was mad and probably said something like, ‘Well, if I can’t do any better than that, maybe I should quit.’ Linda jokingly agreed on the phone, saying I might as well be at home because we couldn’t afford to have me skiing like that. But it was all misinterpreted. I wasn’t serious.”

So, how does he explain his sudden success?

“I think it was just meant to be,” he said. “I’ve been working hard and committing myself. I decided I owed it to myself and my family to give it my best shot for at least this year and next. And lately I’ve been skiing really well, following a bad race with a good one.

“At this level, it’s mostly mental, and I just really believe in myself.”

The Rasmussen family also includes Anthony, 4, and Kaylie, 1, who have a doting great-grandfather nearby on a 1,000-acre cattle ranch.

“Cowboy Kyle,” as the European racers now enjoy calling him, spent his youthful summers working the herd and his winters skiing at Bear Valley with two older brothers.

With no major races scheduled for the next two weeks because of the yearlong postponement of the World Championships at Sierra Nevada, Spain, the U.S. ski team is getting a surprise midwinter break, and Rasmussen plans to spend it with his family, rather than go to Big Mountain, Mont., for a North American Championship Series event. Instead, he’ll try to stay in shape by skiing at Bear Valley.

The 10,000 Swiss francs he earned at Wengen have already been converted to about $7,000 and contracts negotiated by his agent, Chris Hanna, will also be paying off, but Rasmussen would have preferred to be skiing for gold in Spain this fortnight.

“My big goals have always been to win a World Cup race and a medal in the World Championships,” he said. “I’m halfway there, so I’m really disappointed to have to wait another year.”

In the meantime, he’ll be digging in the mother lode country, but not for gold.

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Skiing Notes

Americans will skip the World Cup giant slalom makeup race that has been rescheduled for today at Adelboden, Switzerland. Jeremy Nobis might have competed, but he has a groin injury. Italy’s Alberto Tomba, who has won seven consecutive slaloms and two of four giant slaloms this season, will try to move a step closer to clinching his first overall title.

The World Cup freestyle circuit moves to Oberjoch, Germany, this weekend after four weeks in North America, where the United States maintained its lead in the Nations Cup standings. At Lake Placid, N.Y., last weekend, Ellen Breen of West Hills made it five for five this season, winning the women’s ballet; Donna Weinbrecht scored her second women’s moguls victory; Kriste Porter took both the women’s aerials and combined, and Trace Worthington doubled in the men’s aerials and combined.

Team Austria, composed of retired racers Lisi Kirchler, Franz Klammer and Leonhard Stock, won $20,000 by defeating Team USA in the finals of a new Downhill Relay last Saturday at Keystone, Colo. The Americans--twins Phil and Steve Mahre and Debbie Armstrong--earned $15,000.