Olympic Preview: The Foreign Favorites

• Share

(2 of 4)

At the 1987 world championships in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, women skiers from the host country won all five gold medals. The richly talented squad that just might bring off a similar Swiss sweep at Calgary includes Vreni Schneider, 23, Brigitte Oertli, 25, Corinne Schmidhauser, 23, Newcomer Chantal Bournissen, 20, and Zoe Haas, 26, who will get an extra boost because she was born in Calgary. But while any of them can win a given race, the real drama will unfold next week on the downhill slope.

There Figini plays the fiery, unpredictable sprite to Walliser's frosty virtuoso at her peak. An Italian-speaking native from the southern canton of Ticino, Figini is both a tough self-disciplinarian and something of a free spirit, who trains when she wants and skis as she pleases, with an elegant, easy grace. Walliser, from the German-speaking St. Gall canton, is a methodical worrier with a rough-edged technique that seems acquired rather than instinctive. Their rivalry dates to the 1984 Olympics, where the unheralded Figini won the downhill, becoming the youngest skier ever to take a gold medal and relegating Walliser, the favorite, to second. Relations grew testier after Rossignol, the ski manufacturer, stopped sponsoring Walliser in favor of Figini.

Jean-Pierre Fournier, who coaches the Swiss women, seems untroubled by the Walliser-Figini face-off. "They are two rivals," he says, "two people who don't have great love for each other, as happens in any other business, like in any office." Besides, strong, competitive personalities are needed to reach the top. The Swiss, unquestionably, have reached the gold standard.

FLYING FINN

He has been called the John McEnroe of ski jumping. When he isn't leaping to world records, Finland's Matti Nykanen (pronounced Nuke-an-en) is usually fuming and sulking. And that's on his good days. On his bad days, he has spit at spectators, cursed reporters, been arrested for stealing beer and been booted from the national team twice.

But there appears to be a new Nykanen on his way to Calgary: cooperative with teammates, patient with interviewers, serious about training. Friends attribute the change to the birth last October of his son Sami. "Matti has grown up a lot in the past year," says his coach Matti Pulli. "I think he has finally figured out that there are a lot of important things in this world besides ski jumping." Nykanen, 24, began jumping at the age of nine in his native town of Jyvaskyla. At 17, he totally outclassed the competition during his first international junior championship. Two years later he won the World Cup, a title he has held three of the past five seasons. During the 1984 Games, he took the gold at 90 meters and the silver at 70 meters.