Stenmark Found Fame, Not Solitude

Alpine skier Ingemar Stenmark of Sweden was never much for public life.

Stenmark took up skiing, he once said, because, “It was a thing I could do alone.”

According to David Wallechinsky in his “The Complete Book of the Winter Olympics,” Stenmark wrote a school essay when he was 10 on “How I See My Future.” In the essay, Stenmark said he wanted to be a ski racer. His teacher told him his dream was unrealistic.

Because Stenmark retired in 1989 as the greatest technical skier in history, apparently that teacher was wrong. He won 86 World Cup races; only one other skier won half that many.

At the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics, despite having suffered a major concussion only five months earlier on a downhill practice run, Stenmark was a double gold medalist. He won the slalom and giant slalom in the same way--coming from behind on the second run. His concession to the concussion was to skip the downhill.

Stenmark, who turns 46 next month, has lived a quiet life since his retirement. He splits time between Sweden and Monte Carlo. According to Stig Strand, an analyst for Swedish television, Stenmark works for a Japanese clothing company and “skis for fun a little bit.”

According to Strand, Stenmark, unmarried, has an 18-year-old daughter, Natalie, who has spent time in Florida taking tennis lessons. Along with tennis legend Bjorn Borg, Stenmark is the most popular athlete in Sweden, according to Strand.

Stenmark has also taken an interest in 19-year-old Anja Paerson, the 2001 World Cup women’s slalom champion, because she comes from his home town of Tarnaby, 100 miles south of the Arctic Circle.

After she won her World Cup race, Paerson was quoted as saying that Stenmark talked to her before the final runs.

“Before the race, I didn’t think I could win because I was too nervous,” she said.

“But I am lucky to know Stenmark. I have big ears whenever he speaks to me. I try and remember whatever he says to me, even if it is just ‘Hi, Anja.’”

During the 1978-79 season, Stenmark won 13 World Cup races and had what is considered to be the best season in the history of ski racing.

At the 1980 Games, Stenmark, as he always did, skated cautiously on the first run of the giant slalom and was in third place. In the second run, Stenmark was more than a second faster than anyone else. In the slalom, Stenmark was fourth after the first run.

The leader was American Phil Mahre.

But, as he had done in the giant slalom, Stenmark burned the course, beating everyone else.

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Diane Pucin