Let's say there is an office pool on that ultimate test of valor and gristle, the Olympic men's downhill ski race at Mount Allan, near Calgary. You throw in your dollar, reach into the hat, and pull out the name of Switzerland's Peter Muller, say, or Canada's Rob Boyd. Congratulations! These are hairy-eared mountain men, eaters of nails, sleepers on plank floors, and you are looking fairly good to win a hatful of dollars. Muller, at 30 still the toughest downhill specialist since Austria's Franz Klammer, won the pre-Olympic downhill trial at Mount Allan last season. In downhill he was World Cup champion in '79 and '80, second at the Sarajevo Olympics four years ago and gold medalist at Crans-Montana in Switzerland last year in the biennial world championships. Boyd, 21, is a young phenom on a tear, leading an inspired team that will be playing to the home folks. In mid-December he won the ferocious downhill at Val Gardena, Italy, for the second year in a row. Grrrr! Another helping of your 20-penny galvanized, waiter, with a quart of jalapeno sauce.
Right. But don't count your money just yet. Big, cheerful Michael Mair of Italy, who won at Leukerbad last month, could get his bear-shaped 220 lbs. behind a thundering run. A slightly smaller Swiss bear, burly Daniel Mahrer, has won two downhills so far this season. No U.S. skier will place in the downhill without supernatural intervention, but any one of several Austrians could reverse that team's unaccountable recent blahs and win out of sheer embarrassment. And then, of course, there is Pirmin Zurbriggen, 25, the people's choice from Zurich to Zug, from Zell to Saas-Almagell, his tiny hometown in the Swiss canton of Valais.
Last year, for the second time, Zurbriggen won skiing's overall World Cup, the measure of season-long excellence in the Alpine disciplines (slalom; giant slalom; super-G, for super giant slalom; and downhill). He dominated the world championship at Crans-Montana with two gold medals and two silvers. He leads the current World Cup, and this Olympic year could establish him as the best all-event male Alpine skier since Jean-Claude Killy. Not the best male Alpine skier, without qualification, over this period; that would be Sweden's astonishing Ingemar Stenmark, still campaigning at 31, a self-invented slalom and giant slalom wizard who has won more World Cup races (85) than any other man. But Stenmark does not like downhills, and he won't run these down-in- flames plunges. He won golds in slalom and giant slalom at the Lake Placid Olympics in 1980, then was banned from Sarajevo because he did not meet the tortured Olympic definition of eligibility. He'll be on hand at Calgary, still rich from fees and endorsements but once more eligible. Stenmark is the archetype of an age of skiing specialists, and Zurbriggen is the best of the handful of world-class racers versatile enough to beat the specialists in any event.