Chop off a lizard’s tail and it grows back. Behead the Austrian men’s ski team and a new face appears.
The king is sidelined. Long live the king.
Stephan Eberharter radiated the quiet assurance of a man whose new mantle fits as he stepped into the living room of a rented condominium in this hamlet near the Snowbasin Ski Area, where the Olympic downhill will be contested Sunday.
He has every right to feel regal. Eberharter, blasting into the gap left by the absence of the injured Hermann Maier, has had a jaw-dropping World Cup season, winning nine events in all, five of them downhills. He enters the Olympics having captured three straight races in three different disciplines. Eberharter leads the World Cup overall, downhill and super-giant slalom standings and is a mere third in giant slalom, which might be called his off event.
Eberharter’s frank blue eyes are edged by crow’s feet that could be the result of chronic laughter or frequent grimaces. A significant skid interrupted his long career.
“You get stronger and stronger by winning races,” Eberharter said. “Many years ago I had to go through this steep rally, and I know this is not the end of my life. If I’m not winning gold or medals, the world keeps on turning.”
Now 32, Eberharter burst on the scene 11 years ago when he won super-G and combined titles at the world championships. Injuries and lack of fitness sent him into a tailspin in 1992, and he raced on the second-tier Europa Cup for four years, then slowly worked his way back to the top ranks of the team. He began to hit his stride in 1997-98, winning a silver medal at the Nagano Games, but ran into the buzz saw that was Maier.
Maier, the defending Olympic super-G champion and overall World Cup leader in three of the last four years, had his legs mangled in a motorcycle crash last summer. Before and after the injury, the European press has made much of the pair’s allegedly tense relationship.
Eberharter stopped taking the bait months ago and smiles politely when the subject is raised.
“I have to concentrate on my own [skiing], you know,” he said. “It’s more quiet now. They asked me in November and December, but now it’s done, I think.
“He’s hurt. I was hurt many years ago. This is what many racers have to go through. … I have spent many years on the team now. Everyone knows me. Of course, I know the young ones are looking [up to] me and trying to do as well as I do. When I go back 10 years, I did the same. You learn from the older, more experienced racers.”
Overwhelming as Eberharter’s hot streak might seem, World Cup success doesn’t always grant admission to the Olympic podium. The last two Olympic downhill gold medals went to men who never won that event on the World Cup circuit: Tommy Moe of the United States in 1994 and Jean-Luc Cretier of France in 1998.
Daron Rahlves, the top U.S. hope in the speed events and a two-time downhill winner during 1999-2000 World Cup season, beat both Eberharter and Maier in the super-G at the world championships last year.
Eberharter is the heir to a tradition that is the alpine equivalent of the New York Yankees. Austrian men have won more Olympic gold medals, with 15, and more Olympic medals overall, at 48, than any other nation.
The names of past heroes such as Karl Schranz and Franz Klammer are household currency in the nation of 8.15 million. Eberharter rattles off Klammer’s 1976 gold-medal time (1 minute 45.73 seconds) the way an American kid might spit out Barry Bonds’ home run total.
One of the most salient aspects of the Austrians’ prowess is that the intrateam competition is as fierce as an international event. Midlevel skiers on the team will win starting slots here in training runs.
This season Eberharter was pushed by his teammate Fritz Strobl, a part-time police officer who has won a World Cup downhill and a super-G this season, among others.
“They just keep coming,” U.S. men’s head coach Dale Stephens said of the Austrians, who lost five skiers, including slalom world champ Mario Matt and Strobl’s brother Josef, to injury before and during the season. “As soon as one goes down, another jumps up from Europa Cup.
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“Eberharter has really stepped up, and he’s doing it in three events. He’s skiing at the limit, but consistently, and he’s not making mistakes. He’s a quiet guy, but I think he has taken a slightly different role within the team.”
Eberharter, who comes from a Tyrolean valley known for folk music and plays the accordion and the harmonica in his spare time, has seemed relaxed all season.
“Maybe this pressure with the Austrian team helps us,” he said. “It’s not new for us. We’ve all grown up with that, since we were kids.
“We spend a lot of time together with our toughest competitors. All this pays off now.
“You have to decide very early how much you’re going to expend for the sport. Do you want it all or do you want to quit?”