Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 17, 1994 TAG: 9402170119
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
DATELINE: LILLEHAMMER, NORWAY LENGTH: Medium
She tuned out the rock 'n roll music, the rap songs and the goofy rooster call that starts each run in freestyle moguls skiing. She tried to relax.
Then she stepped to the starting gate and raced her way to a silver medal.
"I enjoyed my run very much, and I had fun doing it," she said. "That's really why I ski."
Stine Lise Hattestad of Norway won the gold medal Wednesday, and Elizaveta Kojevnikova of Russia took the bronze. Donna Weinbrecht, who has dominated the sport and won the gold in 1992, finished a disappointing seventh after a sixth-place showing in qualifying Tuesday. Results from qualifying do not carry over to the final, which includes skiing for time and points for leaps.
"I have to look back on my accomplishments at this time," Weinbrecht said. "I've won 30 World Cups. I don't think I've been off the podium more than 11 times in my six-year career. I have to be very thankful for all the accomplishments I've had. I have a gold medal and I've been a champion.
"It's all right. I wish things could have gone better. But it just didn't happen, and I've got to be a champion without the gold."
Weinbrecht, of West Milford, N.J., was coming back from a major knee injury last season. After tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee, as well as rupturing the lateral meniscus and fracturing a bone, she missed the 1992-93 World Cup season. But she recovered to win the first six World Cup events this season, and she said her knee wasn't the problem here. It was her vision.
"It started last week when I started getting this numb feeling and a real bad vision thing where I didn't have a good focus," she said. "I've been fighting it. It's one of those things where you're off. I want to figure it out because this course - as we say in freestyle - I think I really could have shred [mastered] it like I had all week. But when it counted, it was like an out-of-body experience."
Hattestad must have had a similar experience, winning the gold medal before the home crowd in her last season of competition.
"It was really what I wanted to do, but I don't know if I quite understand what I've done," she said.
The sporting world doesn't quite understand what any freestyle skiers do. McIntyre, 28, a quiet sort with a degree from Dartmouth in government and environmental studies, doesn't seem to fit in with the sport.
"I like the challenge," said McIntyre, a native of Hanover, N.H. "Mogul skiing is very challenging, very exciting, despite all the hullabaloo. I enjoy that, but I usually tune it out. For me, it's a matter of my skis and myself."
She acknowledged that freestylers are somewhat misunderstood.
"People don't realize that we're serious athletes," she said. "We train hard, and we take what we do seriously. A lot of people think we're lighthearted."
by CNB