The Olympics: King from the Kitchen

As mountains go, Austria’s Patscherkofel is not likely to win any beauty contests. A short (7,373 ft.), stumpy cone, it looks for all the world like an inverted Dixie cup. But the Patscherkofel makes up in ruggedness what it lacks in looks. At last week’s ninth Winter Olympics, its rocky crags and fir-covered slopes were the site of the men’s downhill, the fastest and toughest course ever to test the mettle of the world’s finest skiers.

High Hopes. The weather was sunny enough to make the surface moist and soft, cold enough (at 29°) to keep the undercoating hard and fast. U.S. hopes ran high: at the last minute officials had reversed the seedings that determined starting positions, moved both Vermont’s Billy Kidd, 20, and Colorado’s Buddy Werner, 27, into the coveted first rank. The luck of the draw gave Kidd first crack at the 10,236-ft. course—and when he flashed past the finish line in 2 min. 21.82 sec., almost 1½ sec. better than the course record, American joy knew no bounds. But Germany’s Ludwig Leitner clocked 2 min. 19.67 sec., and France’s Leo Lacroix cut almost a second off that. Then, high above the tree line a grinning, brown-haired Austrian stabbed at the snow with his ski poles and began his run.

Egon Zimmermann, 23, never took a skiing lesson in his life. Born in the Tyrolean resort of Lech am Arlberg, he picked up free pointers by watching rich tourists practice stem Christies on the slopes around the Zimmermann family inn. Packed off to Paris’ ritzy Ledoyen restaurant at 15 to learn the art of French cooking, Egon showed a fine flair for mousse-making—whenever he could be persuaded to come in out of the snow. At 18, he won all three Alpine events at the Austrian junior championships, and experts began calling him “the new Toni Sailer.” But then he dislocated a shoulder on the eve of the 1960 Olympics.

The bad luck followed him last year to Chamonix where, whistling through the downhill at 70 m.p.h., he was suddenly waved off the course to avoid a collision with a fallen skier. He dodged the skier all right—and flew off the headwall “like an airplane.” Recalls Zimmermann: “I said to myself, ‘Egon, that’s the end—you’re going to break every bone in your body.’ I was lucky. I got off with strained ligaments and twelve days on crutches.”

Only Proper. On the Patscherkofel last week, Zimmermann made like an airplane again—a jet this time. By the time he reached the bottom of the first gentle schuss, he was already traveling at more than 40 m.p.h., and a force of several G’s tore at his body as he hit the hollow where Australian Ross Milne lost control in practice and hurtled to his death. Next came a treacherous se ries of bumps: unlike more timid competitors, who hugged the surface, using their legs as shock absorbers, Zimmermann boldly catapulted over the bumps with great, bounding leaps of 45 ft. or more. Crouching low, he plunged headlong down an almost vertical precipice; his speed shot up to 60 m.p.h., his skis chattered, and the wind whistled through the ear holes in his crash helmet. Finally Zimmermann was in the homestretch, zipping through the Velodrome, a 400-yd. series of banked interconnecting turns, and on down the last, steep traverse, caroming off a final bump—and flying across the finish line in midair. Time: 2 min. 18.16 sec.

“That should have done it,” boomed an Austrian voice over the finish-line loudspeakers.

It did. No one else came close. Nearly crashing into a tree, Colorado’s Werner was lucky to finish 17th, and the fastest of all the U.S. skiers, as it turned out, was California’s Ni Orsi, 19, who had barely qualified for the team, wound up 14th. Winner Zimmermann did his best to console the losers. “After all,” he said, “it’s only proper that an Austrian should win on an Austrian mountain.”

Other Olympic Results:

> If the Russian government’s gold reserves ever run out, it can always call on LIDIA SKOBLIKOVA, a dimpled, blonde schoolteacher from Siberia, who is going to need help from Brinks to get her winnings home. Speed Skater Skobli-kova, 24, won two gold medals at Squaw Valley in 1960. Last week she won three more, sweeping the 500 meters, the 1,000 meters and the 1,500 meters, setting Olympic records in all three races. “Now cut out that kissing,” gasped Lidia, as teammates swarmed round to congratulate her. “I can’t get any air.”

> In Russia, it is sometimes hard to tell who is married to whom. Despite their names, OLEG PROTOPOPOV and LUDMILLA BELOUSOVA are man and wife-and the best pairs figure skaters in the world. To the accompaniment of Rachmaninoff, they performed a breathless routine of intricate acrobatics, skated off with the gold medal.

> With only one jumper still left on the hill, Norway’s Toralf Engan seemed to have the 70-meter ski jump all sewed up. But the last jumper had other ideas: arms pressed tight along his sides, nose almost touching the tips of his skis, Finland’s VEIKKO KANKKONEN soared 259 ft. 2 in., landed soft as a feather to score 229.9 points and edge Engan by 3.6 points.

> Britain’s two-man bobsled team of TONY NASH and ROBIN DIXON had all kinds of trouble: first, they broke an axle, had to borrow a replacement from Italy’s eight-time world champion, Eugenio Monti. Then, zooming down Igls’ hairy, ice-coated run at better than 60 m.p.h., the Britons suddenly lost control of their sled, narrowly missed shooting off the course. They still won—giving Britain its first Winter Olympics gold medal since 1952. The generous Monti finished third.

> CHRISTINE and MARIELLE GOITSCHEL, sisters from Val d’Isére, France, poled and skated their way through the ladies’ slalom, finished first and second. In third place: Oregon’s Jean Saubert, the pre-race favorite. Afterward, stocky Marielle Goitschel, 18, demonstrated that she can handle herself as well off the course as on. Angry at an Austrian policeman who was pushing French Coach Henri Bonnet around, Marielle uncorked a haymaker square on the point of his jaw.

As expected, Russia was turning the unofficial scoring race into a rout. By week’s end the powerful Russians already had five gold, three silver and four bronze medals. After four days of competition, the U.S. had only Saubert’s bronze slalom medal to show for its efforts.