World Cup Skiing : Petrovic Is Slalom Winner at Heavenly Valley
Rok Petrovic, a 20-year-old skier from Yugoslavia whose only goal is “to come as close to perfection as possible,” won his fifth World Cup slalom of the season Tuesday at Heavenly Valley.
The goal is a safe one to have in Yugoslavia, where the Communist state still likes to tell athletes how much money they can earn.
In any other European country, Petrovic, who has already clinched the World Cup in slalom, could take home a half-million dollars or more annually from his various sponsors, but he said: “Money has never been my goal. I didn’t start out that way, and I still don’t care anything about it.”
Petrovic, who moved up from second place in the first run after the leader, Guenther Mader of Austria, missed a gate two-thirds of the way down the second course, had a two-run total time of 1:44.52, which was .93 of a second faster than runner-up Pirmin Zurbriggen of Switzerland.
Ingemar Stenmark of Sweden, perhaps the world’s richest ski racer, was third in 1:46.33. Stenmark, who will be 30 next Tuesday, can still “come as close to perfection as possible,” himself, but his primary goal is obviously to provide a comfortable living for his wife Anne (who was here in her customary white outfit covered by a fur coat) and infant daughter (who was home in Monaco).
Fourth place went to Marc Girardelli, the Austrian who races for Luxembourg, in 1:46.61. Girardelli, the defending World Cup overall champion and current leader, advanced a notch when Dietmar Koehlbichler of West Germany, was disqualified for missing a gate on his second run.
So, the men’s overall standings tightened a bit as Zurbriggen picked up 20 points while Girardelli acquired only 12, reducing the latter’s margin to 45 points, 294 to 249.
“If Pirmin skies well this weekend at Whistler Mountain (near Vancouver, Canada),” Swiss Coach Ueli Hasler said, “then he still has a chance to catch Girardelli.”
But Tuesday was clearly Petrovic’s day despite his belief that the course “was not prepared early enough. They started too late. They should have been working on it seven to 14 days ago. It was hard on the very top, but it broke down underneath.”
To this allegation, Heavenly Valley spokesman Tim Cohee said: “He must be joking. We’ve had a week of changeable weather--rain and then snow. There’s no way it could have been prepared any earlier.
“We called for 40 volunteers among our employees to go up on the hill at 3 this morning to help pack the course. More than 100 showed up. They poured 70,000 gallons of water on it, then helped it freeze with ammonium nitrate.”
Said Stenmark: “The first course was a little rough. It was breaking up in spots. But the second was better. They did a good job, I think, because the courses were difficult to prepare.”
But at least, according to Stenmark, there was never any thought given to boycotting the race, as the competitors had done Sunday before the giant slalom at Aspen, Colo.
At Park City, Utah, the women held their own World Cup slalom Tuesday, and as usual, there was a Swiss winner--Erika Hess. She had a two-run total of 1:39.95. Olga Charvatova of Czechoslovakia was second in 1:40.85, Perrine Pelen of France third in 1:41.08.