Monday, Mar. 23, 1970

Slippery Days on the Slopes

Though the world Alpine ski championship is nominally an amateur affair, the spectacle staged in Val Gardena, Italy, last month looked more like the world ski-trade fair. With their equipment splashily plastered with brand names, contestants paraded before the TV cameras like walking commercials. For a $400-a-month payoff, one entrant sported the badge of a resort he has never even seen. After winning the special slalom, France's Jean-Noel Augert shouted "Vive Le Courbier!"--a hard-sell pitch for a ski resort in which, as he put it, "I am investing all my savings."

Billy Kidd, 26, the top U.S. skier, went everyone one better. After winning the gold medal for the best overall performance in the downhill, slalom and giant slalom, he announced that he was turning professional. A week later at Verbier, Switzerland, Kidd competed against 39 other pros in a series of races and schussed off with total winnings of $6,500 in what was billed as the first World Professional Skiing Championships. This week the touring pros moved into Vail, Colo., to race for $50,000 in prize money.

Under-the-Table Pay. The newly organized pro circuit is the creation of ABC-TV and Bob Beattie, former coach of the U.S. ski team, who sees it as one alternative to the "shamateurism" that plagues skiing. The problem stems from the archaic Olympic Committee rule, which states that an amateur athlete may not spend more than six weeks a year pursuing his sport. For skiers like Kidd--and indeed athletes in any sport --the rule is patently ridiculous. "In order to compete at the top nowadays," explains Kidd, "you have to spend at least ten months skiing." The amateur ski racer is forced to accept "certain under-the-table payments" if he wants to eat regularly.

The result, says America's Amos ("Bud") Little, a vice president of the Federation Internationale de Ski, the governing body of amateur ski racing, is that "we're in a mess. If the Olympic rules were policed, the whole U.S. men's ski team would have to be changed." Even so, when it comes to payola, Europeans are way ahead. They regard their skiers as natural resources vital to the promotion of winter tourism. Thus European ski groups maintain cash "pools" to keep their racers in ski wax and maybe a sports car or two. France's Jean-Claude Killy was reportedly rewarded with $30,000 in pool funds after winning three gold medals at the 1968 Olympics. And if skiers are able to pick up a little extra pocket money on the side, well, more power to them--unofficially, of course.

A topflight "amateur" like Austria's Karl Schranz, 31, for example, reportedly rakes in close to $50,000 a year. At today's rates, each victory nets him a total bonus of $4,000 from the grateful makers of his skis, boots, bindings, poles and gloves. In addition, he earns a salary as a "technical adviser" for an Austrian ski manufacturer.

Last Battle. The Federation is aware of the payoffs and in fact sanctions them under certain conditions. Following the 1968 Winter Olympics, which International Olympic Committee President Avery Brundage threatened to cancel because of the brandishing of brand names, the FIS ruled that skiers could obtain payments for endorsements--so long as the money was approved by and dispensed through their national associations. Said FIS President Marc Hodler: "Our decision is evolutionary, not revolutionary. We have accepted the fact that ski racers are now full-time sportsmen who simply have no time left over for earning extra money."

Many people, including Beattie, believe that the sport's future, as with tennis and golf, lies in "open competition" between avowed professionals and true amateurs. The difficulty is the Olympics, in which skiing is the heart of the winter games. "There is no such thing as amateur ski competitions any more," says Beattie. "It's foolish to think that the sport will be allowed to stay in the Olympics the way it is now." In May, the liberal-minded FIS will meet with conservative old Avery Brundage and his

Olympic Committee to thresh out their problems. It promises to be a fight to the finish, for according to FIS President Hodler, the 82-year-old Brundage plans to make the question of professionalism "a personal battle and his last battle."

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