Injured Street Gets a Lift for Test Run

Less than three months after blowing out her left knee in training, Picabo Street went down the course for next February’s Olympic downhill at Nagano, Japan.

“I rode on my coach’s back--he was on skis--and we stopped about six times where I could stand on the snow and get the feel of it,” she said during an interview this week at her home in Portland, Ore. “It looks like a really fun downhill, and I think I’m going to like it a lot.”

Street, who had just returned from the Snow Industry America show in Las Vegas, was catching up with family and business matters--and repacking for a trip to the World Cup Finals starting today at Vail, Colo.

She will again be a spectator, watching U.S. teammate Hilary Lindh and her other rivals on the circuit wind up a season that ended for Street on Dec. 4. But by mid-June, she plans to be on snow herself, on her own skis.

“I’ll start here on Mt. Hood,” she said, “then in the last week of August and the first week of September, I’ll go to South America with the team. I won’t compete down there but just go through the routine of training camp. I’ll be ready to race by fall.”

The two-time World Cup downhill champion suffered a similar but less complex injury to the same knee in 1989, and drawing from that experience, she said: “You hold back a tiny bit at first, until you get to the bottom and ski another run, then you’re pretty comfortable after that. You become this animal like I am now, like . . . more, more, more. The hard part is being patient and waiting for what I’m going to be able to do later.”

CONGRATULATIONS FOR LINDH

In Japan earlier this month, Street finally had a chance to congratulate Lindh on her downhill gold medal in last month’s World Alpine Ski Championships at Sestriere, Italy.

Street, who won the downhill in the 1996 world championships at Sierra Nevada, Spain, said that after Lindh’s victory, “She tried to call me, and I tried to call her. We ended up finally communicating over the Internet, on e-mail. And then I saw her the day after I arrived in Japan [for the World Cup races there].”

Asked if she missed not being able to race this winter, Street said:

“It’s weird. I miss it in a way, and then I don’t miss it in a way. It’s been a really nice time off. It took about a week or two where I had these little moments when I’d find myself sniveling and looking at my petite, shriveled-up leg, and I would ask, ‘Why me?’ Even though I knew why me. I would sulk for a while . . . cry it out. Now, I’ve come to terms with it, and for the last month, it’s been really easy.

“It wasn’t like I was yearning for competition. The thing I missed the most about the World Cup season were my friends, my relationships and my interactions with the girls from the other teams--and the whole ritual of it. Ironically, this is something that in October was bothering me. It was like, I’m kind of fed up with this whole routine and the same thing over and over again. Now, I’m looking forward to that.

“So, I’ve got this renewed motivation, and it’s actually a blessing in disguise.”

LOOKING TOWARD 2002?

Street, who turns 26 next month, had said previously she intended to compete only through the 1999 world championships at Vail, but when asked if the injury had affected her plans, she hedged.

“I have to say I’m considering 2002 [and the Salt Lake City Olympics] more seriously than before. But what I am trying to accomplish is this: I would like to win a gold medal or two in Nagano, and win a gold medal or two in Vail at the world championships, and once that has happened, then I’ll evaluate whether or not I still have a drive.

“The only thing I see myself doing between Vail and 2002 is going for the overall World Cup--pick a season and really hammer for it.”

At Vail this week, Street will have a chance to ask this year’s overall champion, Sweden’s Pernilla Wiberg, how it’s done.

“Pila trained with the U.S. ski team last summer in South America,” Street said, “and she was awesome, such an intense worker. She really pushed us. I pegged her in November as the overall winner.”

Her bags packed, Street said goodbye to her mother, father and secretary Tiffany Timmons, a high school friend from Sun Valley, Idaho, and headed for the airport. Along the way, she couldn’t help but notice a new billboard on I-84, advertising Nike, one of her sponsors. It depicts her in full downhill flight, along with an uncharacteristically serious facial shot and these words: “There are no shortcuts.”

QUICK TURNS

The men’s overall World Cup is still up for grabs at Vail, with speed specialist Luc Alphand of France holding a fairly solid point lead over all-around skier Kjetil-Andre Aamodt of Norway, 1,072 to 955. . . . Lisa Kosglow of Boise, Idaho, will be trying for her sixth consecutive win in the Bud Light North American Snowboard Championships this weekend at Mt. Snow, Vt. . . . Bob Beattie’s final “Chevy Truck Ski World” of the season will be on ESPN Thursday at 10:30 a.m. and again next Tuesday at 1:30 p.m. . . . America’s Donna Weinbrecht returned to the Freestyle World Cup circuit last weekend and won the moguls event at Altenmarkt, Austria.