Pro Tour Has Nothing on Alpine Counterparts

Professional ski racers will take to the hill at Snow Summit this weekend to compete for $50,000, which doesn’t sound like much in this era of multimillion-dollar sports contracts, but it’s a living--at least for a few.

There’s little question that the athletes on the World Pro Ski Tour are actually less tainted by money than the Olympic types racing this week and next in the World Alpine Ski Championships at Sestriere, Italy. The latter, in fact, are the real pros, many earning in six and seven figures.

But then Avery Brundage is no longer around, and neither is amateurism. It was 25 years ago this month that Brundage, then president of the International Olympic Committee, sent Austria’s great Karl Schranz packing on the eve of the 1972 Winter Games at Sapporo, Japan, because it was discovered--horrors!--that “Karlie” had accepted thousands of schillings to race on Kneissl skis.

Austria recovered quickly from this indignity, and this winter eight of the top 15 men in the World Cup standings are from that nation, as are the first three on the World Pro Ski Tour standings.

After eight pro races--two each at Les Deux Alpes and Courchevel, France, and Beaver Creek and Winter Park, Colorado, Sebastian Vitzthum leads with $25,364 and 216 points, 21 more than defending champion Hans Hofer, who has earned $22,944. Roland Pfeifer is third with 155 points and $12,306. The highest Americans are Erik Schlopy, sixth with 130, and Felix McGrath, ninth with 90.

Missing from the circuit is Bernhard Knauss, also of Austria, who won 86 races, four season titles and five world championships in nine years.

“He banked $1.6 million during that time,” tour spokesman Don Metivier said this week. “But he decided to give the World Cup a shot and is attempting to qualify for the final races with the Slovenian team.”

At Snow Summit, a slalom is definitely on the schedule Saturday, with trials at 9 a.m. followed by head-to-head, dual racing among the 32 qualifiers at 1 p.m. on lower Miracle Mile.

There is some confusion about the rest of the schedule. Chris Riddle, marketing operations manager for the resort at Big Bear Lake, indicated that there would be only the one race, but Metivier said another slalom will be held Sunday.

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Julie Parisien, who retired early from the U.S. ski team in 1994, has won three of the first six races on the women’s side of the World Pro Ski Tour, earning $17,337 and accumulating 165 points, 50 more than runner-up Birgit Hussauf of Austria.

Parisien, 24, is in her third year as a pro. She finished second in 1994-95, then won the title last season, and obviously could give U.S. Olympic prospects a boost next winter if she were to rejoin the team. However, that seems unlikely, since Parisien has said repeatedly that she prefers the freedom of her present situation to being in a structured environment.

The women’s only stop in California will be at Squaw Valley, where they will join the men for the World Pro Championships March 21-23.

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Competition in the World Alpine Ski Championships continues today at Sestriere with the women’s slalom--a race in which Parisien might have been one of the favorites.

Other highlights will be the men’s downhill Saturday, the women’s giant slalom Sunday, the women’s super-G next Tuesday, the men’s giant slalom Feb. 12, and both the women’s downhill and men’s slalom on Feb. 15, closing day.

Those last two dates could see mass hysteria in Italy as Alberto Tomba defends his titles on familiar slopes.

Skiing Notes

Marc Girardelli, 33, the Austrian who won five World Cup overall titles and four gold medals in six world championships while skiing for Luxembourg, is not racing at Sestriere because of a serious knee injury. He probably will announce his retirement in the next few days, according to an Italian sports daily. . . . Hilary Lindh of Juneau, Alaska, who signaled she is ready for the world championships by finishing fourth in the World Cup downhill Saturday at Laax, Switzerland, will be one of Bob Beattie’s guests on “Chevy Truck Ski World” today at 1 p.m. on ESPN.

Mammoth Mountain will play host to the American Snowboard Tour this weekend. The schedule for the $25,000 event: Friday--giant slalom, Saturday-dual slalom, Sunday--halfpipe. . . . The International Snowboard Federation World Tour will come to Bear Mountain on Feb. 14-16.

Skiers are faced with a couple of obstacles in reaching some of their favorite resorts as the result of recent flooding and mudslides. U.S. 50 to South Lake Tahoe is closed at Pollock Pines, but a detour is available via a route ominously called the Mormon Emigant Trail. . . . And U.S. 395 in the Eastern Sierra is closed between Bridgeport and Walker, with a fairly easy detour set up via California 182 and Nevada 338, 829 and 208. Got that straight?

Ski instructors Junior Bonous and Jimmy Johnston, and publisher David Rowan have been inducted into the U.S. Ski Hall of Fame. . . . Bill Gorton, a retired Air Force major general, has been named executive vice president of U.S. Skiing by Bill Marolt, the organization’s president and CEO.