Athlete profile: Ylva Nowen

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

Athlete notes

Amidst an injury-plagued season for Swedish star Pernilla Wiberg has come the unlikely rise of Nowen -- Wiberg's teammate for nearly a decade, but never her peer...Nowen rung out 1997 in style, winning the last three World Cup slalom events of the year...then on her 28th birthday on January 5 in Bormio, Italy, Nowen won her fourth slalom in a row...she had never finished better than fifth in any race over eight previous World Cup seasons and had considered quitting at the end of last year..."It's new to me, to be so popular, and somehow embarassing," Nowen said. "People surround me, they want to know of my private life. I have always been myself in the past"...her fast start has surprised even the most astute of those in the skiing community..."I still don't really know her," admits former Austrian and current US women's head coach Herwig Demschar. "She had been just floating around for about five years. I think it was probably mental, she decided to really dedicate herself in skiing in the off-season. She's a great balance skier and surprisingly fast"...Nowen's sudden rise has instilled within her a rather odd emotion -- fear...she talks like the psychology student she is..."I am a little bit scared about what is happening," said Nowen after winning her third December slalom in a row, in Lienz, Austria. "It is all coming a bit too fast. I don't know how I did it. Yesterday I said it was due to all the mental training I have been doing and so on. But today, I simply don't know anymore"...still cautious about the fragility of success, Nowen has refused to allow others to mark her as an Olympic medal favorite..."I can't start thinking I am the best," says Nowen in words one would never hear from men's slalom star Alberto Tomba. "I can continue winning if I manage to remain concentrated, calm, and focused. I have asked Swedish journalists not to play things up too much. Whether or not I can make a medal (in Nagano) will depend on whether I am in the right frame of mind"...arguably the best parallel skier in the world, Nowen's prior struggles on the World Cup prompted her to consider joining the pro parallel circuit until parallel slalom was included again on the World Cup tour...many on the circuit believe training with Wiberg has helped Nowen -- as has Wiberg being injured because the Swedish coaches now cater to her..."It's not frustrating, it's how it is," says Nowen, commenting on Wiberg's domination of the Swedish alpine scene. "Pernilla is helping us much because we know she is the best and we can compare to her. The whole training this summer (with Wiberg) was really good for us"...Nowen comes from Ostersund, a perennial runner-up in Winter Olympic bidding...she was born on Frosön -- and island in the middle of Ostersund -- that has a myth well-known in Sweden...it seems that in the waters around Frosön, there have been sightings of a monster like the Loch Ness Monster in Scotland...however, Nowen has never really seen "The Ugly Animal in the Big Lake"...Ostersund is the headquarters of Swedish skiing and a long-time World Cup site...she learned to ski from her father -- a trainer who now is an airplane mechanic in the military...her mother is a nurse...Nowen's exposure to the American tradition of Thanksgiving while at Mammoth Mountain this year was chronicled..."All I ever knew about Thanksgiving was that it was something with the Indians," says Nowen. "I'd heard that it was a big weekend in the U.S. And that it was a feast for eating, I didn't know either"...she helped the chefs at a Mammoth Mountain restaurant prepare Thanksgiving dinner for their patrons...Nowen speaks English well...