To the limited extent that Americans embrace ski racing, we tend to love the swashbucklers, the hell-bent-for-leather downhillers. Like Bill Johnson and Tommy Moe, two Yanks who had runs of a lifetime at exactly the right moment — Johnson in Sarajevo in 1984, Moe in Lillehammer ten years later — and went from obscurity here at home to celebrated Olympic champions.
In European circles where skiing is held in reverence, it is the technicians who can navigate the slalom courses seamlessly that are held in special regard.
For a European slalom specialist to command the attention and affection of American audiences, that skier has to be somebody who can do more than master the gates. It has to be somebody that stands out from the crowd, somebody outsized, somebody a little bigger that life.
Somebody exactly like Alberto Tomba, the man they called “Tomba la Bomba” (“the bomb”).
The Italian star had the greatest single ski run I ever saw at an Olympics. It was in the slalom event at the 1994 Lillehammer Games and won Tomba a silver medal. Perhaps it sounds strange to bestow such a superlative on second place, especially given that Tomba had previously won three Olympic gold medals in Calgary and Albertville. Still, it was on that single run that I was privileged to witness true greatness.
Tomba had arrived in Calgary back in 1988 as the young hotshot on the ski circuit. He had never won a race until just before the Games, but piled up seven quick victories. In Calgary he won both the slalom — by more than a second — and the giant slalom.
Americans, however, were more likely to have taken note when the burly Italian showed up with a bouquet to woo Olympic figure-skating queen Katarina Witt. The German heartthrob, apparently immune to his charms, sent him packing, making his bravado rather endearing.
For the rest of the year, Tomba set out to demonstrate that Witt was the exception. The number of women seen partying with Tomba was exceeded only by the number of drinks seen clutched in his mitts. He only slowed down on the mountain. Out of shape and inattentive is a dangerous combination on the slopes — and it took its inevitable toll. Tomba broke his collarbone in a fall, sidelining him for an entire season.
The injury provided a wakeup call. Tomba cut back on the pasta and wine and, at least temporarily, let the ladies take a back seat to Team Tomba. He used a cutting-edge assemblage of experts — coach, trainer, doctor, physiotherapist and psychologist — to help him regain championship form.
By the eve of the ’94 Albertville Olympics, Tomba was back; in 13 World Cup races that season, he won seven and never finished worse than third. And “La Bomba” was back too, brash as ever. He boasted that the French city would soon be known by a new name — “Alberto-ville.”
There was always a mischievous quality to Tomba’s bombast. And, of course, he had a habit of backing up his braggadocio. When he won the giant slalom, he became the first Alpine skier to successfully defend an Olympic title. While he didn’t defend in the slalom, all the buzz afterwards was about his second run that propelled him from sixth to a silver medal.
That comeback effort, however, paled next to his second slalom run in Lillehammer. Tomba had buried himself with a poor first effort — 12th place, almost two seconds back. Since he had already been disqualified in the giant slalom after missing a gate, his chance to become the first Alpine skier to medal at three Olympics was apparently gone.
What nobody reckoned with was a minute of sheer perfection. Tomba’s run combined the power of an avalanche with the precision movements of a prima ballerina. Flying down the slope, he seemed to be gliding on air. As Tomba crossed the finish line and glanced up at the clock, an explosive cheer rocked the mountain.
But with 11 skiers still to race, that extraordinary effort figured to be for naught. Then seven more skiers went down the mountain without anybody catching Tomba. Then an Austrian lost a ski, a German fell and so did a Norwegian. And suddenly there was just one man standing between Tomba and a gold medal.
After a strong first run, Austria’s Thomas Stangassinger had a huge margin for error. So he skied cautiously, stayed on his feet and barely bested — by .15 seconds—Tomba’s cumulative time. Stangassinger was the gold medalist. But Tomba was still and forever the bomb.
Mark Starr has been a national sports correspondent for Newsweek since 1982 and has attended 10 Olympics. Look for his columns each Sunday in The Herald leading up to the 2010 Vancouver Games.
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