Valentines and Tomba: That’s Amore

Alberto Tomba is tired of the player haters.

You think it’s easy to be a country’s biggest winter sports star, a famous playboy, object of women’s desires?

“It’s difficult when you’re Tomba, when people think they know Tomba,” he said. “People write bad things. I’d like to introduce you to Alberto.”

Alberto is a man caught between this partying persona he created and his desire to live a normal life. Because when driving a Ferrari with Miss Italy by your side falls under the “been there, done that” category and the next milestone isn’t another slalom gate but your 40th birthday, it’s easy to fall into an existential pit.

Ever since he skied his way to five Olympic medals, talked his way into all of the news coverage and partied his way into the gossip pages, Tomba has been an Italian icon.

You couldn’t combine the words “Italy” and “Winter Olympics” without thinking of Tomba. I couldn’t have come here without getting an audience with the pope of the slopes.

I dreamed of sampling Italy’s nightlife with Tomba, doing the samba alongside “La Bomba” and his pack of beautiful women. I settled for a few minutes of his time at a promotional event for Samsung. In reality, this is a more representative setting for him now. His old image is the best way for him to make money now, as was the case with this publicity ploy that gave women a chance to win lunch with the legend.

Don’t begrudge the euros he makes. He spends a lot of his time and money helping children (even though he has none of his own), and he likes to promote his country just as much as himself. (Before I could ask him a question, he turned the tables and asked me what I thought of Turin.)

But when it was time to discuss himself, he cleared the cache, unloading a lengthy discussion on all things Tomba. In the process, he confirmed a long-held theory: It really is lonely at the top.

“It’s difficult for the skier to meet a nice girl at 10,000 feet,” he said. “After the victory, you go to a gala, of course you’re going to meet nice girls. But first you have to be Olympic champion.”

He thinks soccer players and golfers have an advantage because they’re in the middle of civilization, not isolated in the mountains. Still, Tomba did OK for himself. Back in the day, he joked that he’d have to switch his party plans from three women until 5 a.m. to five women until 3 a.m. to prepare for the Olympics. He famously -- but unsuccessfully -- wooed figure skater Katarina Witt at the 1988 games in Calgary.

Now he’s down to one, anonymous mate.

“I have a girlfriend,” Tomba said. “I like to keep it private.”

Still, he hasn’t made it down the aisle.

When Newsday sports columnist Shaun Powell asked him when he planned to start a family, Tomba said, “Tonight, maybe. Tomorrow I will tell you how many kids. HA HA HA!”

It still can be fun to be Tomba the bachelor. It’s still lucrative too.

As part of his yearlong tie-in agreement to promote these Olympics, Tomba participated in the Valentine’s Day gimmick Tuesday.

Powell and I went to a whipped-up place that could be described only as Piazza dello Corporate Sponsors, a place of branded tents, pavilions and an ice rink in desperate need of a Zamboni. Apparently, we arrived just in time. A host stepped to the stage, rattled off Tomba’s career accomplishments and said in his best impersonation of Michael Buffer, “Albertooooo TOMBA!”

Nothing. It would be another 20 minutes before Tomba took the stage. In the interim, we were graced by the arrival of Boston Globe sports columnist Bob Ryan, who explained his presence: “It was either this or curling.”

Finally, after another full-fledged introduction, Tomba showed up. Women swooned. He bantered in Italian, then set his criteria for choosing the women out of the crowd: no one old or ugly.

He wound up with Sabrina, who looked smitten the moment she took the stage; Natalia, who looked a little reluctant to be there; and Victoria, who had a big pink hat.

Their challenge was to call friends, give them some clues as Tomba joined the conversation and get their friends to guess Tomba’s identity, nickname (“La Bomba”) and how many Olympic medals he won (five). The fastest to do it would win.

I noticed something in these calls, and Tomba did the same thing later, while signing autographs. All of the women called male significant others, and none of the men seemed to mind that his woman was standing next to a renowned womanizer.

That shows how big Tomba must be over here. How do you think an American woman would react if her man called to say he was hanging out with Pamela Anderson, then put her on the phone?

Tomba is also so big that it didn’t take two of the guys much time to figure out who he was. Except Victoria’s guy. He struggled to find the right answers, to her visible frustration.

The judge, a staffer standing to the side with a stopwatch, ruled that Sabrina and Natalia got their answers in the same amount of time. No tiebreaker needed. Tomba had lunch with both of them.

Play on, player.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Adande, go to latimes.com/adande, and to read more, go to latimes.com/adandeblog.