Voices were shrill in the tiny country wedged between Austria and Switzerland. The argument: Would Liechtenstein (pop. 16,000) be represented at the Winter Olympics in California's Squaw Valley next month? No, thundered Chief of Government Alexander Frick, worried lest Liechtenstein's honor be compromised by a last-place finish at the games. "Those who come in last have the real Olympic spirit," countered Baron Edward von Falz-Fein, Chief of Mission for the Liechtenstein Winter Olympic Team. "I wouldn't dream of winning." Added the baron darkly: "There will be a revolution if they don't let me go."
The baron has been taking time-off from his three souvenir shops to run his Olympic candidates out to the ski slopes in his Studebaker. The top candidates for the three-man team are all named Kindle: Silvan Kindle, 23; his third cousin Hermann Kindle, 24; and Gebhard Kindle, 21, no kin. The Kindle Kinder train hard. Liechtenstein has no ski lifts; the husky young Olympians must hike up the steep Alpine slopes on foot. All of them work in factories, ski only on weekends. "That's the Olympic idea," says Baron von Falz-Fein. "Do sports for your pleasure. Naturally, I would like to see my boys train longer, but if I took them out of their factories, they'd never get back in again." Liechtensteiner parents are aghast at the idea of their athletic offspring's losing a month's wages sliding around Squaw Valley on a pair of sticks. The only subsidy that the skiers receive is free Ovomaltine to balance out their diet.
Falz-Fein is determined to press on, with or without the government's blessing. "I have studied all the Olympic rules," says he, "and if there are any amateurs in America, they will be ours." One problem still vexes him. U.S. promoters, apparently expecting little from Liechtenstein's skiers, have asked that he bring Miss Liechtenstein to the United States to spruce up the scenery. "Where," asks the noble baron, "do we find a pretty girl here? We are a country of peasants. If I held a beauty contest, the Chief of Government would send me straight to prison."