They Have Run of the Place

After taking a slow trolley ride that hugged its way around steep cliffs and chugged 2,500 feet up a mountain, a group of kids finally arrived at what they came to see: a 6-foot rabbit who answered to the name Snowli.

According to legend, Snowli came to Earth, learned to walk, then learned to ski, thus making him the perfect role model for his very attentive audience, which was roughly made up of

4-year-olds.

Having already mastered the walking part, they eagerly awaited the next step in the progression, which looked like a lot more fun. After all, this is what they do in wintertime here in Heidi country, deep in the rugged Alps. This is where they do it, in the shadow of the mighty Matterhorn, the postcard peak shaped like a crooked finger, which seems to beckon them.

This is how Olympic ski champions are born and raised.

“This is what we know,” said Ralph Schmidhalter, director of the ski and snowboard school in Zermatt. “We know how to ski.”

Snowli is really a furry, well-insulated mascot who serves as a prop at the children’s ski school. He’s designed to entice Swiss kids to the slopes, yet Snowli doesn’t really need to exist. Children in Switzerland, Austria, Italy and France who share the Alps require very little prodding and pulling to strap on skis and carve up the mountains. It comes almost as naturally to them as breathing. The joke around here, about some kids being able to ski better than they can walk, really isn’t that much of a stretch.

“Well, they definitely can ski faster than they can run,” Schmidhalter said. “That much is true.”

Down across the border in Italy, the Olympic skiing events are underway. The next wave of Olympians is aggressively being groomed. The next European wave will come from all the usual places, all the nooks and crannies of the Alps, and a few might even recall the day they were first drawn up the mountain by a big, funny bunny.

More likely, though, their parents gathered them when they were as young as 3, bundled them tightly from the chill and introduced a tradition to a new generation.

“It’s hard to say exactly what’s the earliest age for kids,” Schmidhalter said. “It really comes down to how strong their legs are. As soon as they can hold their own with the skis, then they’re skiing.”

Americans, men and women, may enjoy occasional Olympic success, but ... the Austrians, Italians, Swiss and French are to skiing as Penn State is to linebackers. This is the sport they worship, embrace and learn to master from a very early age. This is the sport they’ve come to own in previous Olympics, where 104 of the 147 medals ever awarded in the downhill, slalom, giant slalom and super-G have been greedily collected by skiers from the Alps.

This is the sport that generates good money during the prestigious World Cup circuit, held mainly in the Alpine region of Europe, and draws crowds well into the thousands, including quite a few impressionable kids.

Although the United States pumps money into its training facilities, which are among the best in the world, and owns impressive mountain laboratories in Colorado and Utah, American kids don’t gravitate to skiing quite the same in terms of numbers and intensity. They have options, after all. There’s always a football team to try out for, or a baseball to throw, or an Xbox to play.

Also, because of economic and geographical reasons, skiing doesn’t tap into a massive number of kids from the tough neighborhoods in the big cities and the rural areas of the South. It’s almost exclusively made for white, middle-class Mountain Dew drinkers who live a short drive or walk from the ski lift.

Here in Switzerland, on the other hand, one former Olympic gold-medal winner summed it up.

“What else can the kids do in the winter?” asked Max Julen. “Maybe ice climbing.”

Julen is a native who made good, winning the gold medal in the giant slalom in 1984, and he now owns a hotel in the middle of town. His father was a world-class skier and gave little Max no choice. By the time he was 7, Julen had already conquered the toughest runs in the Matterhorn region, and was projected for greatness.

“My father pushed me,” he said quietly. “Skiing wasn’t always much fun.”

When did skiing become fun?

“When I turned 16,” he said. “That’s when I knew I was good enough to be a champion.”

He rates 90% of the population in the Swiss mountain regions as expert skiers, and that number probably climbs a bit in Austria.

In the Swiss public school system, there’s a one-week break in February, called Sportsweek, when kids from the first grade up are invited to take ski lessons at local resorts, leaving their textbooks and homework behind.

“The turnout is pretty big,” Schmidhalter said. “I don’t know too many kids who decline the opportunity to trade their books for a pair of skis.”

Can you imagine public schools in the United States allowing kids a week off to play baseball?

Even when school is in session, local kids are invited to the Zermatt resorts twice a week. And for the lucky kid whose father runs the ski school, ski lessons come free and easy. Schmidhalter’s son, Lorides, 3 1/2 , started a year ago. He’s now an intermediate skier.

“He saw me go out every morning,” Schmidhalter said. “He kept asking, ‘Can I ski? Can I ski?’ Finally, I said OK. He was going to start pretty soon anyway.”

Don’t they all?