Austria hungry again for its ski empire

Based on Olympic Alpine results so far, Austria has to be flat, like Kansas.

The country’s strength is probably table tennis or microbrewing -- it can’t be Alpine skiing.

The Vancouver Games enter their last week and Austria’s manly ski men have yet to earn a medal. They’ll get their next chance in Tuesday’s men’s giant slalom at Whistler Creekside. With any luck, 45 guys will fall down and Austria can sneak in for the bronze.

The women have two medals -- the same number as one 133-pound American woman: Julia Mancuso, who hadn’t finished in the top three in a race that mattered in two years.

OK, enough bashing from a rah-rah American. Let’s cut straight to the Austrian publication Kleine Zeitung, which ran a photo of four of its top Alpiners: Benjamin Raich, Michael Walchhofer, Georg Streitberger and Mario Scheiber. The hook here was that nobody in the lineup had finished higher than 14th in the men’s super-giant slalom.

The caption read: “Failure No. 1, 2, 3, 4.”

Words such as “nightmare” and “debacle” are being tossed around like Austrians, on Whistler Mountain, in the speed races.

“A bit of criticism is fine,” said Raich, who won double gold in Turin, Italy, but has finished fifth and 14th in his two Whistler races. “That kind of pressure can do some good.”

Austrians have one question for Benni: “When?”

Andrea Fischbacher restored some order when she won Saturday’s super-G, and afterward said she doesn’t read the papers.

Is it possible Uncle Slam has finally cracked the secret Austrian ski code?

Four years ago in Italy, Austria barely strudeled a gate in winning 14 Alpine medals (four gold, five silver, five bronze) to America’s two.

At the end of Turin, the United States handed its pre-Olympic motto, “Best in the World,” back to its rightful owner.

With six Alpine events down in Whistler and four to go, America has eight medals to Austria’s two.

Instant armchair-lift analysis: What’s happening in Whistler is probably a combination of next-to-home cooking, talent, stepping up, karma, mojo and luck.

Austria was awesome in Italy, but everything that could have gone wrong for America four years ago, did.

Medal hopeful Lindsey Kildow, before she married Thomas Vonn, probably lost two medals when she crashed in a training run two days before the downhill.

Bode Miller, who was supposed to win five medals, took a bagel.

As boorishly as he acted, though, Miller skied well enough to win a couple. He missed bronze in the downhill by 0.11 and was leading the combined by 0.97 when he was disqualified for hooking a gate. It required instant replay to prove he missed it.

Miller loves to chant the mantra about the fine line that separates goat from glory. “There’s a huge element of luck involved,” he says of his sport.

Miller’s luck in Whistler has been tremendous -- he has three medals to prove it. This time, he won bronze in the downhill by 0.12, ahead of some Austrian named Scheiber.

Miller earned the silver in super-G, a mere 0.05 ahead of the fourth-place finisher from Italy. In Sunday’s gold-medal victory, Miller actually completed a slalom, which happens about twice a year.

The U.S. team has been consumed by a contagious and organic momentum that has been fomented partly by Miller, the former instigator.

“They are seizing their moment,” explained Bill Marolt, chief executive of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Assn. “It’s carpe diem. Today’s the day I’m going to be great. They’re doing it.”

Add to that: Vonn didn’t crash in downhill training this Olympics and has two medals. Mancuso, the defending gold medalist in GS, has won two silver medals here on comfortable snow that reminds her of California conditions back home in Squaw Valley.

“I think they’re playing off each other,” Marolt said. “One has success and it sort of challenges the other.”

However, save for a rookie -- Andrew Weibrecht, who scored a bronze in the super-G -- these are the same top guns America took to Turin.

Obviously, the U.S. has caught Austria in transition. Alpine Nation recently retired the bibs of two of its all-time greats, Hermann Maier and Renate Goetschl. They took six Olympic medals to the farm.

Nicole Hosp, a former World Cup overall champion, tore ligaments early in the season and didn’t make the trip.

Same thing happened on the men’s side, with Christoph Gruber. Walchhofer, the former downhill silver medalist, is 34 and appears to have lost his edge.

America is better, for certain, and what’s raging here might require a call to the Whistler Fire Department.

“It was the Lindsey Vonn show coming in,” veteran U.S. downhiller Marco Sullivan said. “Now it’s turned into the U.S. Ski Team show.”

Austria has been taken to the wooden ski shed, but these Olympics aren’t over. Alpine Nation still has 12 medal chances left in four races. Raich is the defending Olympic champion in GS and slalom.

In the last two men’s events of the 2006 Games, Austria won five of the six available medals.

What’s happening here is probably something closer to the Yankees losing the World Series to the Diamondbacks and then George Steinbrenner getting really mad.

Austria is at the top of the lodge -- don’t go too cuckoo clock yet.

Austria has won 103 Alpine medals in the Winter Olympics. The U.S.team hasn’t even cracked 50.

To paraphrase a famous Austrian: “They’ll be back.”

chris.dufresne @latimes.com