Athlete profile: Pernilla Wiberg

Posted: Tue February 3, 1998 at 5:00 PM ET

Athlete notes

The Golden Girl of the slopes, Wiberg's chance to add more jewelry to her coffers may be stymied by two broken ribs...the three-time world champion and twice Olympic gold medalist, Wiberg injured her ribs during a crash in the second leg of the slalom in Lienz, Austria on December 28...Wiberg hit a control gate hard with her chest; after practicing a couple of days in Italy, her trainer, Heinz Petter Platter, thought she should have an X-ray which revealed the injury..."I am going to make a serious attempt at the Olympics, but in the back of my head is the fact that my health is the most important," she said. "Nobody will thank me for wearing myself out"...after becoming the first Swede since the incomparable Ingemar Stenmark to win the World Cup overall title last season, Wiberg has been beset by injury throughout the pre-Olympic season...in October, she injured her knee during slalom training on a glacier in Austria and was out until the middle of December...she showed some of her old form in December with a ninth in a giant slalom; then she led the first run of a slalom before going out, and finally finished fifth in the slalom the day before her injury...over the past few years, Wiberg's skills have extended from those of a technical skier to ones challenging the speed demons of the downhill...of the 22 World Cup victories she has (as of the new year), 13 have been in slalom...but last season, she won her first downhill in Vail, and added victories in the Super G, combined and slalom...how her ribs recover over the next month will determine what -- if any -- events Wiberg enters in Nagano..."Only the pain will decide when I can ski again," she says. "The risk with skiing too early is more pain"...Wiberg has also been troubled by her on-again, off-again (now back on-again) relationship with boyfriend Bodvar Bjerke, a Norwegian trainer..."I am not a machine," says Pernilla. "I think it has been very difficult to concentrate. Right now, I am really down but there is only one way to go"...last year, Wiberg and her manager started a thriving jewelery business -- rings, bracelets and earings with skiing themes - and gold has long been her favorite metal (medal)...at the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics, Wiberg won the combined -- and thus saved Swedish sport from repeated ridicule from its Norwegian neighbors...ten days into Lillehammer, Sweden had yet to win a medal while Norway had amassed 16, and Norwegian newspapers featured headlines like "Sweden like Fiji -- no medals yet"..."I really appreciate this medal," said Wiberg afterwards. "I hope that other Swedes can go for it. I heard on the radio that the king and queen were here. I thought that I must show them that Sweden can take medals"...in Albertville, Wiberg had also been Sweden's lifeboat, winning the giant slalom after the Swedes went 12 ignonimous days with out a single gold...midway through the Albertville Games, the Swedish newspaper Expressen intentionally left two blank pages in the midst of its sports section..."This was supposed to be our medal coverage," wrote Expressen...as Wiberg has expanded her speed events since Lillehammer, her slalom has remained her strong point but the giant slalom -- which she won at the 1991 Worlds and in Albertville -- has become her weakest discipline...at the 1996 Worlds in Sierra Nevada, Spain, Wiberg won gold in the combined and the slalom...the slalom was especially gratifying because it was her first major victory in what has been her top World Cup Events..."I wanted that for a long time," she recalled. "I started with golds at the Worlds and Olympics in the giant slalom, and then in Lillehammer won the combined. But the slalom has needled at me"...the 1997 Worlds in Sestriere, Italy were largely disappointing for the woman who would win the overall World Cup title, but she did win bronze in the downhill..."I know she has wanted to shoot for gold in the downhill and Super G in Nagano," says Platter. "She has won gold in the slalom in the worlds and gold in the giant and combined at the Olympics. Completing the cycle would have been historic. That may be impossible now. Who knows? But if she is in Nagano, she will be there to win. And she will be smiling"...many American skiers point at Wiberg as being more American than European -- for instance, at the Olympic test Events last year in Hakuba, most of the Europeans had non-Japanese meals at their hotels while Wiberg and her entourage went out for shabu-shabu...then Pernilla woke up, and skied to second and 10th-place finishes on the Hakuba downhill course over consecutive days...in American sport there has been the Barry Bonds stare after the home run, the Ickey Shuffle, the ShaqFu...Pernilla's trademark response has been to swing her right arm up in the sky and wave it around...Pernilla will also change her hairstyle with each discipline..."In downhill I have, I don't know what you call it but you make a braid," she says. "In GS I have two braids and in Super G I have just one tail like this"...Pernilla grew up south of Stockholm in Norrkoping...she learned to ski on a little hill near her house, but had to rely on frequent family vacations to ski on normal slopes (much the same way Katja Seizinger began skiing)...Wiberg actually attended music school from age 10 to 16 before she entered a ski academy...prior to Albertville, Wiberg released a single, "Privilege" and the video played regularly on Scandinavian television..."I think that's a one-time deal for me," laughs Pernilla...last year, Wiberg did publish an autobiography titled In the Middle of My Career...although she is arguably the most popular woman in Sweden, Wiberg lives in Monte Carlo for tax reasons...she spends her free time riding her Harley Davidson down the French Riviera...Wiberg also spends much of her time training with the Norwegian men's team -- and her relationship with Bjerke began at a training camp in New Zealand two years ago...Wiberg also does conditioning exercises with a hockey team Sweden's Elite Series (equivalent to the National Hockey League)... Pernilla's parents are both teachers...her mother teaches elementary school and her father teaches English and German...she has a brother and a sister...