A View to an Olympics

If there were ever an Olympics that would be better to watch on television than in person, the 1992 Winter Games from the Savoie region of the French Alps is it.

With 10 venues scattered across 640 square miles and connected for the most part by winding roads more suitable for mountain goats than tour buses, the Feb. 8-23 Games are guaranteed to be a logistics nightmare for the 2,000 athletes and officials, 7,000 journalists and 1 million spectators.

But the views from your living room couch during 161 hours of combined coverage by CBS and TNT should be spectacular.

Albertville, a commercial crossroads of 18,000 people, was allowed to bear the name of these Olympics because it is so nondescript that it will not possibly lure tourists in the future away from competing ski resorts in the surrounding mountains such as Meribel, Courcheval, Les Menuires/Val Thorens and Val d’Isere. Some of the most photogenic events of the Games, the alpine skiing competitions, should come from those locations.

Here are some recommendations on people and events to watch:

Sunday, Feb. 9

Alpine Skiing, Men’s Downhill

For the skiers, the view from the start of the course at Val d’Isere--with Mount Blanc, Western Europe’s highest peak, behind them and the “roof of the Alps” mountain range that forms the border between France and Italy in front--is breathtaking.

So is the course, which has a fast start, a technically difficult middle and a dramatic 150-foot jump near the end.

Switzerland’s Franz Heinzer, the 1991 World Cup downhill champion, is the favorite, but Albertville’s Franck Piccard, the 1988 Olympic Super-G gold medalist, has the home-mountain advantage. A.J. Kitt of Rochester, N.Y., who won a World Cup downhill race in December on another Val d’Isere course, is a medal contender.

Ice Hockey, United States vs. Italy

After its “Do You Believe in Miracles?” gold medal in 1980, the United States finished seventh in the next two Olympics. But it has an easy five-game schedule in the preliminary round--the United Team, formerly the Soviet Union, is in the other bracket--and should advance to the six-team medal round, which begins on Feb. 18.

Cross-Country Skiing, Women’s 15K

The breakup of the Soviet Union also was a factor in the breakup of Elena Vialbe’s marriage. A Russian, she refused her husband’s request to compete for his native Estonia, which is competing as an independent nation. So he left her. Competing for the United Team, she is favored to win medals in four events.

Monday, Feb. 10

Speedskating, Women’s 500

Bonnie Blair is the one person whose local police department encourages speeding. Little known outside of hometown Champaign, Ill., before 1988, her Olympic bid was financed by the city’s police officers. She repaid them with a gold medal in the 500 meters and a bronze in the 1,000.

Favored to repeat in the 500, Blair, 27, also will be a medal contender in the 1,500 on Feb. 12 and the 1,000 on Feb. 14.

Luge, Men’s Singles

In 1980, he was a 12-year-old shoeshine boy for ABC’s broadcast team during the Winter Olympics in his hometown of Lake Placid, N.Y. Twelve years later, Duncan Kennedy could give the United States its first luge medal.

Tuesday, Feb. 11

Figure Skating, Pairs

Russians Natalia Mishkutenok and Artur Dmitriev won the world championship last year, but their coach has complained that she has to scour the streets of St. Petersburg, formerly Leningrad, early each morning to find food for them and that their rink is about to be converted into a meat-packing plant. Canada’s Isabelle Brasseur and Lloyd Eisler could overtake them.

The best hopes for a U.S. medal are the pairing of Calla Urbanski, a 31-year-old waitress from Skokie, Ill., and Rocky Marval, a 26-year-old truck driver from New Egypt, N.J.

Thursday, Feb. 13

Freestyle Skiing, Women’s Moguls

In a new Olympic medal sport, seven judges grade skiers on speed, aerials and turns on a steep, quarter-mile course. World champion Donna Weinbrecht, a former art school student from Killington, Vt., is the surest bet the United States has for a gold medal.

Saturday, Feb. 15

Speedskating, Men’s 500

On the morning of Valentine’s Day in 1988, the day Dan Jansen of Greenfield, Wis., would skate in the 500 meters in the Winter Olympics, he learned that his sister, Jane, had died after a long fight with leukemia.

Unable to concentrate, he fell. He went home for the funeral, returned four days later to Calgary for the 1,000 and fell again.

Four years later, Jansen, 26, returns to the Olympics as a medal favorite in the 500 and 1,000.

Figure Skating, Men’s Freestyle

Unlike the “Battle of the Brians” between Boitano and Orser in 1988, this competition is wide open. All three medalists from last year’s World Championships--Canada’s Kurt Browning, the United Team’s Viktor Petrenko and the United States’ Todd Eldredge of South Chatham, Mass., have suffered from back injuries. May the best sports-medicine doctor win.

Alpine Skiing, Women’s Downhill

Austria’s Petra Kronberger is the only alpine skier, man or woman, who is a medal contender in every event. But she is not necessarily the downhill favorite. Switzerland’s Chantal Bournissen is the defending World Cup champion. The course at Meribel is considered the most challenging ever for an Olympic women’s downhill.

Sunday, Feb. 16

Ice Hockey, Canada vs. the United Team

The Soviet Union has won the gold medal in all but two Olympics since 1960. The fact that the team will carry the banner of the United Team this time is irrelevant as most of the players, as in the past, are Russians.

Canada has not won a medal since its bronze in 1968, but it never before has had a player as dominating as forward Eric Lindros, the first player selected in last year’s National Hockey League draft. He joined the national team when he failed to reach a contract agreement with the Quebec Nordiques.

Monday, Feb. 17

Figure Skating, Dance Freestyle

After Great Britain’s Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean took ice dancing beyond its legal limits in 1984, the International Skating Union altered the rules to prevent skaters from becoming too daring.

But Isabelle and Paul Duchesnay have stretched the boundaries once more, becoming so popular with crowds that judges have been unable to dismiss them.

The brother-and-sister team from Alymer, Quebec, allowed to compete for France since 1985 because their mother is French, won the world championship last year. Their choreographer, not coincidentally, is Dean, who also is married to Isabelle.

Tuesday, Feb. 18

Alpine Skiing. Men’s Giant Slalom

When Italy’s Alberto Tomba arrived onto the world scene in the 1987-88 season, he proclaimed himself the “new messiah of skiing.” After winning gold medals at Calgary in the slalom and giant slalom, he indeed was deified in Italy, where the paparazzi followed his every move. A world-class playboy, as well as athlete, he gave them plenty to shoot.

The image remains, but “Tomba La Bomba,” as he is known in the Italian sports dailies, reportedly has settled down. Favored to repeat in the slalom and giant slalom, Tomba, 25, no doubt will be followed to France by thousands of Italian fans, who, as other skiers complain, are as raucous as soccer hooligans.

Friday, Feb. 21

Figure Skating, Women’s Freestyle

Kristi Yamaguchi of Fremont, Calif., Tonya Harding of Portland, Ore., and Nancy Kerrigan of Stoneham, Mass., finished 1-2-3 in last year’s World Championships, the first time a country has ever swept the medals. But the favorite at Albertville is Japan’s Midori Ito, who in 1989 became the first woman to perform a complicated triple axel jump.

Saturday, Feb. 22

Bobsled, Four-Man

Perhaps no sport has been more affected by communism’s collapse. One of the world’s best drivers, former East German Wolfgang Hoppe, will try to become the first bobsledder to win three gold medals, but the man responsible for constructing East Germany’s state-of-the-art sleds has defected to BMW. Janis Kipurs, driver for the Soviet Union’s gold-medalist two-man and bronze-medalist four-man teams in 1988, is competing for Latvia.

On the lighter side, the Jamaicans will be back with two sleds. Citius, altius, fortius, mon!

Times Staff Writer Randy Harvey will be covering his sixth Olympics in Albertville.