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Winning
the
1984
Olympic men's downhill in Sarajevo made U.S. skier Bill Johnson
famous. Telling everyone before the race that he would win
made him infamous. "I don't even know why everyone
else is here," he said to reporters after his first
training run.
"Everyone else is here to fight for second
place."
At that point Johnson was a 23-year-old from Van Nuys,
Calif., who had won all of one World Cup downhill race.
Sure, he was the first U.S. man to win one, and, yes, it
was at the famous Lauberhorn in Wengen, Switzerland, a few
weeks before the Games.
Johnson also had the best series of finishes in the five
Olympic training runs. "I knew the course and I knew
the competition," he says. "I knew the Swiss
coach who set the course, and he set it up for his skier,
Peter Müller.
Müller was a glider and I was a glider. It was my
destiny."
Still, his peers were annoyed by his brashness and
mortified when he made good. Austrian downhill great and
1976 gold medal winner Franz Klammer called Johnson a
"nose picker."
Johnson raised hackles even further when he told the press
what the victory meant to him. "Millions," he
said. "We're talking
millions."
Gold might have been Johnson's destiny, but untold riches
weren't. Although he won two more World Cup downhills after
the Olympics and saw himself portrayed by Anthony Edwards
in the 1985 made-for-TV movie
Going for Gold: The Bill Johnson
Story, Johnson, always lackadaisical about his training, was
done in by injuries to his left knee and back. In the six
seasons before he retired in '90, he had only five top-10
finishes.
Five years ago Johnson founded the Jeep King of the
Mountain Series, which pitted a dozen top downhillers from
the '70s, '80s and '90s, including himself, against each
other. Johnson pulled out of the series in December, and
lately he has considered
playing the stock market and a career in the construction
business. He lives in a gated community in San Diego with
his wife, Gina, and their two sons, Nicholas, 5, and Tyler,
3.
Despite everything that he said and everything that was
said about him, Johnson has no regrets. "After 1984, I
hung out and had a good time on the circuit for six
years," he says. "I had more fun than most
people, and the guy who has the most fun wins,
right?
Precious few dads, though, have had that
moment.
—by Stephen ThomasCover photograph by Tony Tomsic
Issue date: February 9, 1998
Past Editions of Catching Up With...
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