N.Z. skier could win F.I.S. points combined title

Press, 24 August 1977, Page 15

N.Z. skier could win F.I.S. points combined title

Top skiers from Sweden, Italy, Canada, Japan and Australia are competing in the Air New Zealand-Mount Hutt international series next week — but a New Zealander could win the men’s combined title.

This is a possibility even though nearly all the overseas skiers taking part have vastly better F.I.S. (International Ski Federation) starting points than the New Zealanders in the slalom and the giant slalom events. The anomaly exists — although some'of the leading New Zealanders do not even have F.I.S. points yet — because the bulk of the visitors specialise in slalom/giant, slalom and do not contest the downhill.

The World Cup holder, Ingemar Stenmark, of Sweden, and the Italian racer, Fausto Radici, are not downhillers and — as far as the organisers of the series know — the Canadians, Raymond Pratte and Robert Safrata, and the top Japanese racer, Toshihiro Kaiwa, do not have F.I.S. points in the event.

It would seem therefore that the greatest threat to the chances of a New Zealander taking the Air New Zealand trophy for the overall men’s winner lies with the big Australian contingent. The Swedes and the Australians, together with the New Zealand team, will all be coming to Mount Hutt fresh from the international races at Threabo which finish on Saturday.

At Thredbo, the 21-year-old Stenmark should win the slalom race from a strong field but he will have even greater opposition to cope with when he ventures across the Tasman.

In Australia at present are the two top Japanese slalom exponents — Toshihiro Kaiwa (unconfirmed), aged 22, and Osamu Kodama, aged 20.

Neither Stenmark nor Kaiwa competed in the Australian championship slalom last Saturday which the younger Japanese team member won in brilliant style. And the Japanese are due to arrive in Christ-

church on Thursday, thus missing out on a chance to race the Swede in the Thredbo Cup slalom two days later.

In New Zealand it will be a different story and the slalom event should be the highlight of the series with the giant slalom not far behind. Kaiwa has F.I.S. slalom points of 6.58 and should be able to give Stenmark

a hurry up but the Swede will probably be most worried about the Italian, Fausto Radici, who is already training in New Zealand with memories of one or two World Cup victories over Stenmark in his mind. Radici has slalom points of just 2.50.

Other talented racers in the slalom field will be the two Canadians. Pratte and Safrata, both of whom are bypassing the races in Australia. The Canadians have low slalom points — 20 (Pratte) and 22.75 (Safrata) — and of an even better standard are Stenmark’s team-mates, Stig Strand and Torsten Jakobsen.

Stenmark will, of course, be the favourite to win the giant slalom too, after his impressive record in this event on the last two World Cup circuits. But here again he will have to cope with Radici (8.70). Kaiwa (1919), Safrata (20.49) and Pratte (22.95) who all have quite low points.

With few of the international stars favouring the downhill this event is likely to be dominated by the young Australians, Robbie Mclntyre and David Griff.

Mclntyre, a Melbourne architecture student, is still only 21 but has F.I.S. points of 25.29 for the downhill and is generally regarded as Australia’s best skier.

A somersault early in the downhill was Mclntyre’s fate at the Winter Olympics in In-

nsbruck 18 months ago but his team-mate, Griff, from Sydney, finished twenty-second. Griff has points of 22.41 for the event.

Most of the New Zealanders have little experience in this event but Julian Morris, a 17-year-old Canterbury skier, does have points in the downhill and Stuart Blakely is one of the other local skiers who could show up. Generally, the New Zealand challenge for the combined title will be led by Morris, Blakely, Jeremy Light and Scott Kendall with Warwick Brown right up there with them. The New Zealand girls will have some good overseas racers to compete against in Keiko Kojima (Japan), Jill Wahlquist (Sweden) and Joanne Henke (Australia) but their chances of finishing high up in the placings are very much greater than that of the men. Julia Allison (the winner of the slalom), Fiona Johnson (the giant slalom winner) and Anna Archibald all showed by their performances in the Australian championships that they are in great shape.

Miss Allison’s feat was astounding in view of the fact that she had suffered a hairline fracture of the

fibula only two weeks before her win.

She has already shown that she is capable of heading off Miss Henke but the likely favourite for the slalom is the Swedish girl who has starting points of 40. Miss Kojima, aged 21, is also quite well-performed with 51.10 points. Miss Wahlquist, with 24 points, is also the best regarded entry in the slalom with the Japanese not impossibly far behind her in performance.

The Australian, Miss Henke, specialises in the downhill and could w'ell win this event. Her F.I.S. points — 5227 — are marginally better than those of Miss Kojima and considerably superior to Miss Wahlquist’s.

Miss Archibald sensationally won the national do nhill at the age of 15 two years ago at the same venue but anyone of the Canterbury trio could be the first New Zealander in the event.

As is compulsory for international downhills, both the men and women will have three days to inspect and train on the course — expected to be about 2.5 km long — before the race on Thursday week.

F.I.S. (International Ski Federation) points determine the seeding group to which a skier belongs and, therefore, his starting place in a race. Often, big fields start inraces in Europe and the course becomes rutted — whatever its previous condition — as competitor after competitor speeds between the gates. Obviously then the earlier a skier starts in a race the better the course and snow conditions and the better chance he has of finishing high up on the placings. Often the situation is something of a vicious circle as skiers with high start points find it more difficult to finish a course without mishap because of the ruts and their points stay at a high level Every racer in Europe is trying to lower his F.I.S.

points so that he gets a better start position and next week at least 22 New Zealanders will have a chance to gain F.I.S. points or lower the ones they already have. This is the first time that an F.I.S. race has been held in New Zealand and the chances of getting points for members of the national team are quite a lot better than they are in Europe. With a smaller field than usual — about 30 instead of the 100 plus sometimes seen in Europe — the New Zealanders should find it easier to record times closer to that of the winner. Abbreviations used in the following list of F.I.S. points (where known) for overseas competitors in the series are as follows:— Australia (A). Canada (C), Italy (I), Japan (J), Sweden (S).

Slalom Giant slalom Downhill MEN: F. Radici (I) 2.50 8.70 —- T. Kaiwa (J) 6.58 19.19 T. Jakobsen (S) 14.89 — — 0. Kodama (J) 16.44 28.20 —— R. Pratte (C) 20.00 22.95 R. Safrata (C) 22.75 20.49 — D. Griff (A) 66.22 22.41 R. McIntyre (A) 62.17 54.69 25.29 A. Guss (A) 66.43 —— 36.23 D. Burgess (A) — 47.97 48.32 K. Clifford (A) — 95.11 52.93 I. Wilde (A) 92.18 84.46 53.77 R. Lansell (A) — — 99.22 WOMEN: J. Wahlquist (S) 40.00 24.00 77.00 K. Kojima (J) 51.10 35.56 57.20 J. Henke (A) — 95.52 52.27