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Perhaps, but Schranz is far from alone. Jean-Claude Killy, winner of three gold medals in the 1968 Olympics, says that "there are no amateurs any more. To be good, a skier must literally devote from four to six years of his life to the sport. You don't have time for school or a job, and you must travel the world. That's hard to do without compensation." Susan ChafFee, a member of the 1968 U.S. Olympics team and an outspoken critic of Brundage, likes to don her skis to demonstrate the "Hypocritical Position" —knees bent and right arm extended backward with the hand cupped to receive "the under-the-table payments."
Though Schranz was banished from the Olympic Village last week, the old problems lingered on. F.I.S. President Marc Hodler, for one, would like to amend the rules so that the promotional money of the manufacturers would be channeled through the national federations and used for training young athletes. Brundage was more pessimistic. In what sounded like his swan song, he said last week that the Winter Games "have accomplished a tremendous humanitarian service by popularizing healthy winter sport and recreation, but they have served their purpose and will find it hard to continue as an amateur event."
Meanwhile, out in the cold, the 1972 games continued apace. As expected, The Netherlands' strapping speed skater, Ard Schenk, won the 5,000 meters handily. Next day, though, the flying Dutchman fell at the start of the 500 meters and finished far back in the pack as West Germany's Erhard Keller, the gold medalist in the 1968 games, struck gold again. Switzerland's buxom Marie-Theres Nadig scored the biggest upset in the first three days of action by besting Austrian Skier Annemarie Proell by 32/100 of a second in the women's downhill. The biggest surprise of all, though, was Susan Corrock, a petite racer from Ketchum, Idaho. Going all out on the steep, twisting downhill course, she finished a close third behind the favored Austrian star. It was the first Olympic medal won by the U.S. in Alpine skiing since 1964.