Something Special

in the AIR
On July 13, 1994, the world turned upside down for Lina Cheryazova, the previous winter's Olympic gold medalist in women's aerial freestyle skiing. She sustained a near-fatal head injury during summer training in Lake Placid, N.Y., and spent eight days in a coma. But 18 months later the aerial wonder from Uzbekistan has also become a medical wonder: She returned to the site of her accident and performed two jumps that were good enough for 14th in last week's World Cup competition. It was remarkable, considering that Cheryazova had to relearn such simple movements as walking backward and that even now she doesn't have full control of her left leg.