
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 16, 1994                   TAG: 9402160101
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JIM CAPLE KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
DATELINE: OYER, NORWAY                                LENGTH: Medium

IT'S NOT ALL DOWNHILL

Put the cows to pasture, send Hillary and Chelsea back for the photo ops, and keep those Stars and Stripes handy. There's an American avalanche forming on the slopes of Norway.

First, Tommy Moe of Alaska surprised everyone Sunday by becoming the second American to win the Olympic men's downhill, and the first to do so in a decade. Then after spending the previous afternoon posing with the first lady and telling his life story to virtually every reporter not already assigned to the Tonya Harding watch, Moe put himself in line for another medal Monday with a third-place run in the opening round of the Alpine combined event.

Now cue up the "When You Wish Upon a Star" music for Diann Roffe-Steinrotter, who skied the race of her life Tuesday to win the women's Super G. Roffe flew down the slope on the first run of the day in 1 minute, 22.15 seconds, and no one was faster.

Three days of competition in the can. Two complete Alpine events. Two gold medals. There almost was another medal, but Alaskan Megan Gerety tumbled near the end of a run that had her right behind Roffe (U.S. teammate Shannon Nobis was 10th and Hilary Lindh was 13th).

And all this after the United States had won just two Alpine medals since 1984, building a worldwide reputation that as skiers, Americans make good baseball players.

Wrote Sports Illustrated: "half the cows in Switzerland ski faster than the entire U.S. ski team."

Must be some mighty fast heifers along the slopes of the Matterhorn.

"I was wondering when someone would drop that bomb," Roffe said when asked about the SI article. "I think the past two Alpine races have proved that article tabloidish. I don't think we have to say anything about it. We have two gold medals and we were told we wouldn't medal at all."

Well, some publications predicted an American might ski away with a bronze or a silver, but few gave Roffe much chance. She won a silver in the giant slalom at the '92 Games, but it has been a struggle since.

"The last two years everyone wrote her off," U.S. women's coach Paul Major said. "She's stumbled, she's had injuries. And today she's wearing a gold medal."

A 10-year U.S. ski-team member, Roffe, 26, is the oldest member of the women's team, and she keeps a bit to herself. Asked whether Roffe was a big sister to the rest of the team, Gerety replied, "I wouldn't say that at all."

Roffe, in fact, said it gets increasingly difficult to be on a team with so many younger skiers and announced after the race that she's retiring from the sport after this season. "My values are different. I have a family," she said. "I think my values are a little different from the rest of the team. Not to take anything away from them, because I was the same way."

Yet Roffe's experience was one of the keys.

There is just one run, one chance, to earn a medal in the Super G, and competitors don't get a practice run. All the skiers get is an inspection of the course - prior to the placing of the gates - the day before. Drawing the first run of the day, Roffe didn't have a chance to learn from the runs of her competitors.

"I had to rely completely on the inspection," she said, "and after all the years of morning inspections, I saw the critical areas of the course where you can lose speed and gain speed. That's experience."

That was only part of it. The other part was her approach to the run.

Roffe's reputation is as a good technician, but, says her personal coach, Ernst Hager, "she's too conservative. And if you're too conservative, you can't win."

Roffe said Hager keeps harping on that, and she took it to heart Tuesday. "This is the Olympics and only the first three places matter," she said. "I knew I didn't want to be fourth or fifth or sixth. At the Olympics, if you don't risk everything, you won't be there."

This is just the third time U.S. skiers have won two Alpine gold medals at an Olympics, and a third would tie the record set by Phil Mahre, Bill Johnson and Debbie Armstrong in 1984. They may do it. Moe has positioned himself for a possible medal in the combined event, and the American women - including Roffe - have solid chances in the slalom and giant slalom.

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by CNB