Forecast Is for Faces Both Familiar, Fresh

Every fourth February, a young man’s fancy turns to combined pursuit cross-country skiing, two-man luge, 500-meter short-track speedskating and the 4-by-7.5-kilometer biathlon relay.

Or if not, he maybe gets in a little downhill skiing and the ice hockey bronze-medal game, provided he cuts a successful remote-control deal with the wife or girlfriend and agrees to sit through all four rounds of ice dancing.

Either way, the Winter Olympics are hurtling this way like a German bobsled, household-bound in another 25 days courtesy CBS.

There are new sports to warm up to--snowboarding, curling and women’s hockey.

There are new names to learn, replacements for the long-since graduated Class of ’94.

The key figures in the Ladies Figure Skating Wars of Lillehammer--Nancy Kerrigan, Oksana Baiul, Tonya Harding--are all gone, preoccupied by motherhood, professional touring or banishment from the sport.

Both of speedskating’s preeminent American stars of ‘94, Bonnie Blair and Dan Jansen, are deep into retirement. So too are such familiar names from Lillehammer ski slopes: Vreni Schneider of Switzerland, Petra Kronberger of Austria, Diann Roffe-Steinrotter of the United States, Marc Girardelli of Luxembourg.

A look ahead, then, at 20 athletes who should make a difference during the Nagano Games--10 you already know, and 10 you will know:

Familiar faces in all the frigid places.

DEBORAH COMPAGNONI

She is una leggenda unica in her native Italy, her spate of recent successes cutting into Alberto Tomba’s waning claim as Italy’s most beloved skier.

Olympic gold medalist in women’s super giant slalom in 1992 and giant slalom in 1994, Compagnoni has won the last two women’s world titles in giant slalom--doubling as world slalom champion in 1997. A streak of eight consecutive World Cup giant-slalom victories was broken Saturday by Germany’s Martina Ertl, which earned a shrug from Compagnoni.

“It could not last for eternity,” she said, “and I am glad it happened before the Nagano Olympics.”

TODD ELDREDGE

America’s five-time men’s figure skating champion is the Bach to Elvis Stojko’s techno-rock, a graceful, elegant skater who almost seems an anachronism among the bounding, quadruple-jumping acrobats of the late 1990s.

For all of 1997, Eldredge steadfastly refused to get caught up in the rampant quad fever, relying instead on the quaint notion that, in the end, the skater with the cleanest, most intricate program will win. That thinking might have cost Eldredge the ’97 world title--Stojko beat him with a quadruple/triple jump combination--which may be why Eldredge joined the quad squad last week at the U.S. championships.

Eldredge failed in his first quad attempt, but won his fifth national title. He says he may try the quad again the Nagano, if circumstances and standings suggest he might need one to win.

WAYNE GRETZKY

Olympic organizers and the NHL tinkered with the concept of a “Dream Team” hockey tournament for so long, several Dream Teamers never made it to the promised land.

Mario Lemieux retired. Mark Messier got old. But Gretzky, the ageless perennial, legs still sprightly as he nears 37, will be there in the flaming crimson of Team Canada, hoping to help avenge September’s embarrassing World Cup defeat at the hands of the impudent Americans, who will be led again by Brett Hull, John LeClair and Brian Leetch.

GEORG HACKL

He is the German grand master of the luge, two-time defending Olympic champion after narrowly missing a third gold medal in Calgary in 1988.

Hackl’s roots in the sport date to his youth; he grew up in Bavaria four miles from the Konigsse luge track. His decade-old rivalry with Austria’s Marcus Prock remains among the most intense in the realm of Winter Olympic sports. At Lillehammer, Hackl edged Prock for the title by .013 seconds, and held him off again last January to win the 1997 world championship.

MICHELLE KWAN

Bothered in 1997 by a stress fracture in her left foot and a flying pest named Tara Lipinski, Kwan opened 1998 in spectacular fashion, reclaiming the U.S. women’s figure skating title in Philadelphia with a dominant, historic performance.

Before last week, no female had managed a perfect artistic score of 6.0 during the short program at the U.S. championships. Kwan had seven. Two days later, Kwan strung together eight artistic marks of 6.0--the most ever by a skater, male or female, during the long program at the U.S. nationals.

In less than seven minutes’ ice time, Kwan restored her reputation as the world’s best woman figure skater, establishing herself as the prohibitive gold-medal favorite in Japan.

TOMMY MOE

Four years after his improbable downhill victory at Lillehammer, Moe remains the United States’ only medal hope in men’s Alpine skiing--although recent World Cup showings have not been promising.

Moe has become the poster boy for the injury-ravaged U.S. men’s ski team; he blew out a knee in late 1996 and then, in early ‘97, sliced a tendon in his right hand while tending bar at a post-race party in Kitzbuehel, Austria. Finally fit again, Moe has yet to mount a World Cup challenge to the Austrian stranglehold on men’s downhill competition.

KATJA SEIZINGER

Four years after downhill victory in Lillehammer, Germany’s Seizinger returns as the preeminent woman in Alpine skiing, a legitimate threat for multiple gold medals.

Overall World Cup champion in 1996 and runner-up in 1997, Seizinger again leads the women’s overall standings--ranking first in downhill, first in super-G and sixth in slalom. In late December, she tied Jean-Claude Killy’s record of winning six consecutive World Cup races in as many events.

ELVIS STOJKO

Elvis refuses to leave the building, much to the chagrin of Eldredge and the Russian army of would-be gold-medal figure skating contenders.

Reigning world champion, a title he also owned in 1994 and 1995, Stojko failed to win the Olympic gold medal in Lillehammer, finishing a close second to Alexei Urmanov of Russia.

So he’s back for another run in 1998, again the consensus favorite after winning his fourth Canadian title Saturday with six perfect marks of 6.0 in his long program. If successful in Nagano, Stojko would become Canada’s first male Olympic figure skating champion.

PICABO STREET

Until the recent and sudden emergence of slalom skier Kristina Koznick, American hopes in women’s Olympic Alpine skiing could be summarized thusly:

Picabo, ICU.

Out of intensive care, perhaps, the aspirations of U.S. women’s ski team continue to hinge on the status of Street’s surgically repaired left knee. Street, ’94 silver medalist in women’s downhill, returned to the World Cup circuit only in late December, debuting with two top-11 finishes. Ever the optimist, she says she plans to push those results into the top five by the end of January.

ALBERTO TOMBA

He is to Italy and skiing what Maradona is to Argentina and soccer--renowned for the successes and notorious for the excesses.

Now 31, Tomba is calling this his last Olympics and promises to add one more medal to his Olympic collection, which stands at three gold and two silver. His ability to gear for the dramatic moment doesn’t seem to have lost much. After a winless year on the World Cup circuit, Tomba placed first in a night slalom at Schladming, Austria--four weeks before the Nagano Olympics commence.

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You might not know them now, but you will . . .

CAMMI GRANATO

Tony Granato won’t skate for Team USA in the Olympic hockey tournament, but his little sister will.

Cammi Granato grew up in a hockey-crazed household in Downers Grove, Ill., scrambling to keep up with her brothers during re-creations in the family basement of the United States’ 1980 “Miracle On Ice.” Today, Granato is a 5-foot-7, 140-pound forward on the U.S. women’s national hockey team and the squad’s all-time leading scorer. With Granato leading a veteran team, the United States is expected to push Canada for the first Olympic gold medal to be awarded in women’s hockey.

MIKE JACOBY

Also making its full-medal debut in Nagano is snowboarding, bringing to Japan its skateboard-on-powder youth culture--and, very likely, a slew of American medals.

Jacoby is the Alberto Tomba of this Gen X cousin/rival to alpine skiing, a two-time winner of the World Cup giant slalom title and runner-up at the 1997 World Championships. A native of Bellevue, Wash., Jacoby has been a top-ranked international snowboarder since 1988, earning a part in the 1994 movie “Vertical Reality,” for which Jacoby strapped on a parachute and jumped out of a helicopter to board down volcano slopes in Siberia.

Winning a gold medal next month looks to be somewhat less challenging.

KRISTINA KOZNICK

Out of nowhere, an American medal contender in the women’s alpine technical events has emerged during the last six weeks.

Koznick, a slalom specialist from Burnsville, Minn., had never placed better than 10th at a World Cup event until November, when she began a run of four consecutive top-six finishes, including second in Lienz, Austria, two weeks ago.

With 1994 gold medalist Vreni Schneider of Switzerland retired and 1997 World Cup overall champion Pernilla Wiberg of Sweden sidelined because of knee and rib injuries, the women’s slalom competition is suddenly wide-open--with Koznick hitting stride at precisely the right moment.

ILIA KULIK

If Urmanov, out for most of 1997 with a groin injury, is unable to defend his 1994 gold medal, Ilia Kulik and Alexei Yagudin become Russia’s foremost threats to Stojko and Eldredge for the Olympic men’s figure skating title.

Kulik, second in the world in 1996, won last month’s Champions Series Final in Munich, outskating both Stojko and Eldredge. Kulik’s winning long program featured eight clean triple jumps--along with a flawed quad, landed with both hands touching the ice--and five artistic scores of 5.9.

European champion in 1995, Kulik pulled out of this week’s European championships, claiming a back injury. More likely, Kulik simply wanted a rest after a heavy season of competition, with the Olympics next on his agenda.

HERMANN MAIER

Beginning the 1997-98 Alpine World Cup season as merely another ruddy face on the Austrian “Wonder Team,” Maier has blown past his better-known countrymen to the top of the World Cup overall standings.

Maier is ranked first in men’s super-G, second in giant slalom and second in downhill. He is bidding to become Austria’s first World Cup overall champion since 1970.

LIZ MCINTYRE

A silver medalist in women’s moguls freestyle skiing in 1994, McIntyre has long been regarded as an American gold-medal threat in Nagano--provided she ever made it to Nagano.

McIntyre tore knee ligaments before the 1995 World Championships, an injury that necessitated surgery. A year later, she bolted the U.S. Ski Team and began training in Canada, upset at the firing of several top U.S. freestyle coaches.

By 1997, a truce between McIntyre and the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Assn. was forged and McIntyre returned to the American team. She placed sixth in the 1997 World Championships, held in Nagano.

WENDEL SUCKOW

Nicknamed “Bullet Man” by the Japanese media after winning the gold medal at a World Cup event at Nagano in 1997, Suckow could challenge for the United States’ first Olympic medal in luge.

Not as publicized as Duncan Kennedy, the veteran American luger who retired from competition last month, Suckow has produced superior results. Suckow was world champion in 1993 and a fifth-place finisher in Lillehammer in 1994--the United States’ best showing at an Olympic luge competition. Long-time rivals Hackl of Germany and Prock of Austria will likely contend again for the gold medal next month, but the bronze is certainly within Suckow’s grasp.

TANJA SZEWCZENKO

With a story tailor-made for CBS’ soft-focus biographical approach--strike up the lilting string music--Szewczenko recently returned to competitive figure skating after an 18-month absence because of a viral illness.

Germany’s top female skater, Szewczenko felt so tired and sluggish in 1996, she feared she was dying of cancer before doctors diagnosed the infection and commenced treatment. Last summer, Szewczenko returned to the ice and placed second to Lipinski at last month’s Champions Series Final.

MICHAEL VON GRUENIGEN

The defending men’s giant slalom world champion, Switzerland’s Von Gruenigen is the lone non-Austrian presently leading one the four men’s disciplines on the World Cup circuit.

Third in the world in both slalom and giant slalom in 1996, Von Gruenigen has yet to make his mark at an Olympic Games, placing 15th in slalom in 1994 and seventh in 1992. This February in Nagano could be his time and his place.

CHRIS WITTY

Christened “the next Bonnie Blair”--largely because someone was going to be--Witty has begun to justify such formidable hype.

Witty, bronze medalist at the 1997 World Sprint Speedskating Championships, broke the 1,000-meter world record in November in Calgary with a time of 1:15.43.

A native of West Allis, Wis., Witty is among the gold-medal favorites at 1,000 meters and has also qualified for the U.S. Olympic team at 500 and 1,500 meters.