SKIING / BOB LOCHNER : ‘Corrupt’ Sport Sends Kitt’s Spirits Downhill

It was a notable winter for American ski racing in many respects, but at least one top U.S. athlete wonders if there’s any point continuing in a sport that he calls politically and morally corrupt.

AJ Kitt, who for the second time in three years had a downhill victory taken from him at Aspen, Colo., said in a statement the other day: “The events of late concerning the Aspen World Cup downhill have given me cause to strongly consider whether World Cup skiing is the kind of thing I want to be involved in.

“I’ve learned two very important things the last few days: The people that surround me in ski racing are not involved for the same reasons I am, and the corruption of this sport is not only political, but moral as well.

” . . . I dedicated my soul and my entire self to this sport. Every day that I race I risk my pride, my self-respect and my self-esteem.

“To have risked all that to get back to the top again, and have it tossed aside, by a ballot system where the participants don’t see first-hand what they are voting on, is a reward that I’m not sure is worth the trouble.”

Kitt, 26, finished second in the final downhill last Wednesday at Bormio, Italy, then returned to the United States this week--along with Picabo Street, Hilary Lindh and Kyle Rasmussen, who among them won 10 World Cup downhills this season. All but Street, injured in a super-G spill last Thursday after winning her sixth downhill the day before, are competing in the National Alpine Championships at Park City, Utah.

Kitt said he is not sure whether he will remain on the U.S. team next winter, when the International Ski Federation will try again to hold its biennial World Alpine Championships at Sierra Nevada, Spain, where a lack of snow this season forced a year’s postponement.

“I am taking my career day by day right now,” he said. “In the spring I will make a decision whether to return to the World Cup. Unfortunately, my passion for the sport is now tarnished.”

*

Another U.S. skier, 1994 Olympic downhill champion Tommy Moe, underwent surgery on his right knee last week in Vail, Colo., and “started rehab the same afternoon,” according to Richard Steadman, who performed the operation.

The injury occurred when he fell in a World Cup super-G on March 10 at Kvitfjell, Norway, where he won his gold medal--and super-G silver--a year earlier.

Moe, 25, did not win a race this season, but had several top-10 finishes. He had spent the summer trying to cash in on his Olympic fame and told the Wall Street Journal last month that he had already earned about $500,000 in endorsements and other ventures.

“In a year, I’ve gone from nobody to somebody,” he said.

Moe set up his own company, MoeMentum Inc., at Jackson Hole, Wyo., and hired his uncle to handle marketing--a bad move, according to Kitt, who told the Journal that with a big-time agent running the show, “Tommy could have made millions in ’94.”

As for ’95 and ‘96, Steadman said: “I project skiing for Tommy in September.”

Skiing Notes

Newly crowned World Cup overall champion Alberto Tomba of Italy plans to race next season, during which he will turn 29. . . . Vreni Schneider of Switzerland, who won her third overall women’s title, will be 31 next November and hasn’t announced her intentions.

Spring Break VII, a 10-day festival of races and contests, begins Friday at Bear Mountain. . . . The Jimmie Heuga Ski Express is at Squaw Valley Sunday.

Camilla Lundback of Sweden won her second consecutive Women’s Pro Ski Tour championship Sunday at Mt. Abram, Me., finishing with 325 points, 30 more than runner-up Julie Parisien. . . . Bernhard Knauss of Austria, winner of 13 races on the U.S. Pro Ski Tour this season, has already clinched the men’s title and may skip this weekend’s final meet at Killington, Vt.