Russian Blades And Fast French Skis

Whether the events of the IX Winter Olympics were unfolding on the precious beds of snow that lay among the parched brown mountains around Innsbruck or across the bridge from the old gray city in a gleaming ice stadium, two things were overwhelmingly apparent after the first week of the spectacle: the French can ski at least as well as the superb Austrians, even on handmade Alpine courses, and the Russians can skate better than anybody.

Soon after the huge goblet that burns as the traditional Olympic flame was lit on top of the Bergisel Stadium last Wednesday (right) the Russians began their unending celebrations around the ice arenas. First the Russian hockey team destroyed the U.S., 5-1, in a game that reminded Americans of the U.S. victory at Squaw Valley in 1960 only inasmuch as both sides still had six players and sticks. In quick succession, the Russians then knocked over Czechoslovakia, yawned, beat Switzerland, yawned, and seemed headed for a certain gold-medal showdown this Saturday with the resurgent Canadian team.

In the same ice stadium came an upset in the pairs figure skating by Russia's Ludmilla and Oleg Protopopov, who, after years of frustration in European and world championships, finally outdid Germany's favored Marika Kilius, she the luscious blonde, and Hans-J�rgen B�umler, he the dark, handsome young man. And then Lidia Skoblikova got busy. Her modest project was to become the first winter-sports athlete ever to wear four gold medals all dangling around her neck at once. Each was for speed skating. You name the distance—500, 1,000, 1,500 or 3,000 meters—and Lidia skated it.

While the Russian delegation delighted in the early triumphs of Ludmilla and Oleg and Lidia and their highly skilled hockey players, the attention of the rest of Innsbruck and its overflowing tourists turned toward the more glamorous Alpine skiing events. That's where the French were. And in each of the first four races it was rather difficult to miss them, or for the disillusioned Austrians to forget them.

After six days at Innsbruck, the Olympic box score for French Alpine Coach Honor� Bonnet, who had been suspected of a somewhat permissive training program that allowed his racers some rowdy luxuries, was far more impressive than the confident Austrians had ever imagined it might be. A couple of sisters, Christine and Marielle Goitschel, finished one-two in the ladies' slalom, beating America's Jean Saubert, and then repeated—in reverse order—in the giant slalom two days later. Fran�ois Bonlieu astonished even his own countrymen by winning the giant slalom. And L�o Lacroix ran the dangerous downhill course so beautifully that Austria's heavily favored Egon Zimmermann (see cover) was pushed to the greatest race of his career to win it by a mere .74 second. The struggling American team was left far behind.

The scene of Egon's triumph, on Patscherkofel above Igls, abounded with all of the normal dangers of any downhill so far as pure speed was concerned but was even more hazardous than most because of a labyrinth of technical difficulties: 15 major turns, most of them blind ones, with a hundred subtle but vicious bumps and surprising shadows, the whole thing falling away to the racer's right on all but a few turns into an unbroken barrier of trees and bare rocks.

In practice one racer. Australia's 19-year-old Ross Milne, crashed and was killed. Three others were seriously injured, and minor scars were countless. The gaudy, sport-worshiping European press promptly labeled the run 'The Course of Fear."

It was to this unsettling slope that American Alpine Coach Bob Beattie brought a team that he insisted was not only the best in U.S. history but equal to the best in Europe. Beattie had fought long and hard to get good seedings for his racers, and he had been successful. In a three-hour filibuster only three days before the downhill, Beattie had argued 20-year-old Billy Kidd into the first 16, there to join America's one established star, Buddy Werner.

"We've got our shot," said Beattie. "We'd rather have a good shot and lose than lose with an alibi."

On the day of the race more than 40,000 spectators climbed the narrow road to Igls. Many climbed the trees lining the course from bottom to top. Others trickled out of the woods or jammed together at the finish.