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No one on the U.S. Ski Team has campaigned longer and harder than Cindy Nelson, and no one has experienced the disappointments of the American ski effort more keenly. During the early '70s, she recalls: "A skier was just told what to do, whether it was different from the training program that had been successful for you or not. Things are better today, or I wouldn't still be skiing. I think we can have great skiers hi this country now and really develop their potential to the fullest. Sometimes I look back and I wonder. If it had been like this when I was 17, I might have really been something."
BILL KOCH. Americans do not win crosscountry ski races. So when Bill Koch, a reclusive Vermonter from Putney (pop. 1,789), won the silver medal in the 30-km race at Innsbruck in 1976, the first U.S. medal ever in Nordic siding, nobody was there to notice. In fact, after the race was over, Koch had to go out again in his uniform and skis so that photographers could take his picture for the papers back home.
Since then, lots of people have noticed Bill Koch. Says Koch: "Suddenly there was pressure from all sides. Every tune I competed, people expected me to win. Becoming a top contender, I soon realized, had been easy compared to staying on top." Koch went into a slump that deepened as he was bombarded with questions. He has now completely revised his style, stretching out his once choppy stride and strengthening his arms in an attempt to generate more power on the uphills. And as the Olympics have drawn closer, he has emerged again, better than ever at age 24. Good enough? "Yeah," he says. "With a good race, I could bag it."
In the remaining events, the U.S., as usual, has only the faintest shot at any kind of medal. The 70-and 90-meter ski jumps often produce surprises, but the Soviets and Finns should go into both events as favorites. The same is true of the three biathlon events, which combine cross-country ski races and marksmanship contests. The luge (pronounced loozh), a kind of toboggan that careens down an ice track with one-or two-man teams, should be dominated by the East Germans.
The East Germans should win again in bobsledding, an event that might produce a drama of its own at Lake Placid. The star will not be a driver or brakeman, but the bobsled run itself. Since work was completed on the new refrigerated run at Lake Placid, bobsledders have come to know it as one of the sport's toughest, trickiest courses. One particular turn, the Zig-Zag, a high-banked 60° left turn for 165 ft., followed by an equally tight 170-ft. right turn, is deemed the most technically difficult in the world. More than 50 bobsled teams have crashed on the turn this whiter. When the run was opened in December for practice by U.S. and foreign teams, as many as four sleds a day were coming a cropper at Zig-Zag.