Killy & the Kidd

U.S. skiers almost always promise more than they produce. There was a flurry of excitement in 1964, when the U.S. won a few minor medals at the Olympics, but things quickly went from better to bad. Last year Americans failed to beat Europeans in a single important race. There was no reason to expect anything different this year--until a lanky desperado named William Winston Kidd went hunting in the Alps.

A sophomore at the University of Colorado, Kidd, 22, finished second in the special slalom at Innsbruck in 1964, thus becoming the first American ever to win an Olympic medal in men's skiing. Two weeks ago, in the season's first big meet at Hindelang, Germany, he was up against the fastest man in Europe: France's Jean-Claude Killy, 22, winner of seven major slalom races in 1965. SURPRISE AT HINDELANG read the next day's headline in France's sports daily, l'Equipe, as Kidd, trailing Killy by most of a full second at the end of the first run, flung himself through a whirling, diving second run to win the special slalom by almost two seconds.

Last week Killy and Kidd faced each other again, this time in a two-day giant slalom meet at Adelboden, Switzerland. When the Frenchman beat Billy by 1.04 sec. on opening day, sportswriters called his performance "a sovereign victory." Kidd's second-place finish was pretty remarkable too, considering that the shorter special slalom, not the 'giant slalom, is his specialty. Kidd proved next day that he needed no alibis. Crouched low over his skis, he flashed through the 56 gates and zipped across the finish line in 1 min. 49.59 sec. No one came really close --including Killy, who crashed headlong into a gate at 45 m.p.h. and was disqualified.

The victory earned Kidd the Adelboden combined title. More important, it boosted his personal score after two meets to 60 points--20 more than his closest individual competitor, four more than the combined teams of Austria and Italy. So far at least, the U.S.'s one-man gang was No. 1 in the world.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.