Opening Ceremonies

Preview: January 29, 1999
Whoever said hitting a fastball is the hardest thing to do in sports has never stood in a start house of a downhill ski racing course and hurled themselves down a mile-long precipice of rock and ice. It's a make-no-mistakes playing field, where one wrong move — just an inch off the line — sends a racer hurling into a bone-crunching, agony-of-defeat orbit.

If Roger Clemens threw his best split-finger fastball off a mountain, a downhill ski racer in a full tuck would soon come up alongside it in a blur of Lycra, metal and flesh. Mixing finesse with strength, a downhill racer is skiing's most dangerous, and its most vulnerable animal. The only thing keeping a skier from smashing into the baseball bats still firmly rooted in the ground lining the course is an uncanny combination of strength and verve.

"In front of a mob scene of some 50,000 drunk, flag-waving, screaming spectators, Fleischer self-destructed faster than the tape in Mission Impossible..."

In ski racing, it's a thin line separating excellence and obscurity; between success and disaster.

Just ask Chad Fleischer, a hulking, 6-foot-2, 220-pound figure who might look more comfortable in a football uniform if it weren't for his incredible knack for flying down mountains at blurring speeds. He'll tell you just how thin that line can be.

At 26, Fleischer is now America's veteran downhiller and he will represent a young cadre of racers on the inexperienced, yet dynamic U.S. ski team at these World Alpine Ski Championships beginning with opening ceremonies on Jan. 30 and closing on Valentine's Day, Feb. 14.

Not many people beyond the small world of downhill ski racing know Fleischer's name. And this is especially true in America, where skiers rank between soccer players and professional cyclists in celebrity. Fleischer can walk down unharraassed on any street in any American ski town — save his native Vail. If Fleischer goes to Europe, where ski racing is king, and especially to Kitzbühel, Austria, home of the notoriously steep Hahnenkamm Streif Piste downhill course, people flock to get his autograph.

It's not for his movie-star good looks or his gold medals (he doesn't have any) that the Kitzbühel aficionados seek out Fleischer, but rather for his brutal, bone-crunching crash in 1995 that fans will never forget him. In front a mob scene of some 50,000 drunk, flag-waving, screaming spectators, Fleischer self-destructed faster than the tape in Mission Impossible.

Within a few hundred yards of winning perhaps ski racing's most celebrated annual race — his split times would have assured him a podium spot — Fleischer tried to tuck and fly over a final knoll instead of absorbing it like most racers had. It didn't work. Fleischer's body contorted and rolled, bucked and wheeled, slammed and bounced against the unforgiving frozen earth. So violent was the crash, one of his skis splintered into pieces.

But Fleischer's muscular, lean, well-built frame withstood what even his gear couldn't — a piece of his ski was still attached to his binding. He stood up, bowed and even walked down the course, an amazing display of resiliency and determination. Since then, Fleischer's been dogged by bad luck and near misses and plagued by head games. Despite racing in two Olympics and four years on the elite U.S. World Cup team, the 1996 U.S. downhill champion has never finished better than 12th in a World Cup downhill race.

Fleischer hopes to shake that bad luck next week and finally step onto the winner's podium when he and his U.S. teammates take on the world's best ski racers from some 40 countries in Colorado's chi-chi ski town of Vail for two weeks of ski racing that ranks only second in importance behind the Olympics.

"Racing at home is going to be great. There is such a thing as home-field advantage in ski racing," says Fleischer, who now sports a Dennis Rodman-like leopard spot haircut (inspired by the snow leopard, he says). "It's going to be sweet racing on the new downhill course."

Thousands of Europeans are expected to trek to Vail to cheer on their heroes. In Europe, skiing is a top sport, equal to say football in the United States. Top European ski racers earn millions of dollars in endorsement contracts. Just as Deion Sanders makes commercials here, Luc Alphand, a retired French downhiller, is on the cover of cereal boxes in France. The Europeans, who paint their faces, wave flags, ring bells and scream in funny sounding foreign languages, are sure to liven things up.

There's nothing more exciting than watching a ski race in person. To the uninitiated, what might see boring as hell on television is exciting as hell in person. Slalom and giant slalom are exciting tests of technical, precision ski racing while downhill and super-G are the speedy, glamour events of the sport. The speed events open the Worlds, dominating the event's first week. In the closing week, the technical events highlight the schedule.

Hotel rooms are still available, in fact, local organizers promise a room to anyone who wants one, but call early to get the best rates. Vail can be expensive, but take advantage of discount programs to get a deal on lift tickets.

For couch potatoes who revel during the Olympics every four years, the Vail Worlds offer a chance to actually take part and see history. So get off your butt, paint your face, wear funny hats and yell obscenities. No, you're not going to the Broncos game; you're going to Vail.

If you're the betting kind, don't get patriotic during the upcoming ski Worlds at Vail. A young American squad has about as much chance of winning medals as the Jamaican bobsled team did in the Olympics. The mighty Austrian team, thick with talent and ambition, are actually aiming to win every gold medal awarded during the two- week event. But you never know who will win. That's the beauty of sport: you can't script the event.

— Andrew Hood, Mountain Zone Correspondent
Andrew Hood is a freelance writer living in Denver. For three years he's covered European cycling in the summers and snowsports in the winter.