SKIING / BOB LOCHNER : Those With Mettle Get Medals

No matter what they may say, all athletes are affected by Olympic pressure to varying degrees and try to handle it in their individual ways.

At Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, in 1984, Phil and Steve Mahre came to town and immediately rattled a few cages by calling the Winter Olympics “just another race.� As it turned out, the twins were merely sandbagging. When slalom day rolled around, they wound up with the gold and silver medals.

During the same Games, Tamara McKinney was one of the favorites in the women’s giant slalom, having won the World Cup overall title the previous winter. She finished fourth, out of the medals.

“I had a lot of respect for the Olympics, and I put it on a pedestal where I couldn’t really reach it,� she said the other day. “And I learned from that experience that you have to sort of let the pressures bead up and just go out and focus on the task at hand.

“In the Olympics, because of the magic of it, and the excitement, even though it is another race, it means a lot to the racers involved. It’s their dream to win in the Olympics, and sometimes that can tend for someone to put too much pressure on themselves, above and beyond whatever exterior pressures there might be.�

With the start of the XVIth Olympic Winter Games eight days away, those pressures are already building for U.S. skiers, who will compete this weekend in World Cup races at Grindelwald, Switzerland, and Megeve-Chamonix, France.

McKinney, who will be at Grindelwald for the women’s competition, said: “It will be sort of a telltale race because you’ll see people’s true form, and then you’ll be able to see from that race how they handle the pressure of the Olympics. If they do well in Grindelwald, then they should be able to be at the same level for the Olympics. But it also is a little extra pressure because the people watching the race consider it’s like an IOU to a gold medal when you win the last race before the Olympics.�

Three American women figure to be medal contenders in the Olympic slalom and giant slalom at Albertville, France--Diann Roffe, Eva Twardokens and Julie Parisien.

Although Parisien is the least experienced, she rated special attention by McKinney, who said: “Julie has a very good, calm state of mind, and (although) I don’t know her skiing mentality inside and out, from what I’ve seen of her training and racing, she has a very cool head. And that is very important.�

As for the thought that the Olympics are “just another race,� McKinney said: “When you’re racing, you have to have that state of mind. When you’re in the starting gate, you have to treat it as if it were just another run in a thousand because by (doing) that, you can set out to accomplish what you’re capable of. And if you do put it in an intangible place, then it’s difficult to do what otherwise would be very natural.�

McKinney, who retired from racing shortly after winning the combined gold medal in the 1989 World Alpine Championships, was in Los Angeles in her role as spokeswoman for Jimmie Heuga’s Mazda Ski Express, which will be at Snow Summit on March 8.

The Big Bear event is one of 33 being held throughout the country to benefit the Jimmie Heuga Center at Avon, Colo., a nonprofit scientific research center that develops personalized health and fitness programs for people with multiple sclerosis.

Last winter, the series raised more than $1 million for the facility founded by Heuga, who was stricken with the disease six years after earning a bronze medal in the Olympic slalom at Innsbruck, Austria, in 1964. According to McKinney, Heuga “travels around the circuit more than I do, and he still skis whenever he can.�

The Ski Express is open to skiers of all levels, who form co-ed teams of three. McKinney explained:

“Each team has to raise a minimum of $1,000 to enter, on their own or from friends and corporate sponsors, etc. They get a point for every dollar. And the race itself consists of a four-hour marathon in which everyone skis as many runs as possible, followed in the afternoon by a dual giant slalom race.

“So, the winning team is determined by the number of dollars raised, the number of runs in the four-hour marathon and the total time of the team in the dual giant slalom. From the race at Snow Summit and the other 32, each winning team will win a trip to Vail, Colo., for the finals in April. And for the top fund-raising team in the country, each of those three team members will win a four-wheel-drive Mazda.�

Skiing Notes

Badger Pass in Yosemite will play host Sunday to the first Ski Mother Earth Vertical Challenge, a skiing marathon to benefit environmental causes. Participants must get pledges for the number of vertical feet they ski, and the winners will receive prizes of ski equipment and clothing.

The U.S. Pro Tour continues this weekend at Winter Park, Colo. . . . ESPN will show taped highlights of the U.S. Cross-Country Ski Championships Sunday at 9:30 a.m., followed at 10 by the World Cup freestyle competition at Breckenridge, Colo.