Crash Course America’s Moe At Least Finishes, But A Frenchman Wins

Slashing down a Happo’one course that few could complete, Tommy Moe, the American Golden Boy of four years ago in the Games of Lillehammer, survived the turn 700 meters from the starting box that wiped out 15 of 43 seeking one of the Games of Nagano’s most precious Alpine prizes.

And on a day when Herman “Monster” Maier - the World Cup leader from Austria - crashed there, that was something.

But Moe finished 12th in the thrice-delayed defense of his Olympic crown, three spots below American teammate Kyle Rasmussen.

Moe’s time of 1 minute, 51.43 seconds was 1.32 seconds behind that of surprise gold-medalist Jean-Luc Cretier of France.

“I can’t believe it as the moment,” Cretier said, “although I am sure I will later.”

Imagine Cretier following those words with the stereotypical French haw-haw-haw chuckle.

Moe himself created a good leugh when he allowed: “I’d rather have a Frenchman win than an Austrian any day.”

An Austrian, Hannes Trinkl, did win the bronze medal. And Norway’s Lasse Kjus won the silver.

But this was not a day about winning medals so much as protecting life from limb. Maier’s crash - in which he lost control trying to set up for the Alpine jump high on the course - was the most spectacular. The former Austrian bricklayer who has already won 11 World Cup races this season, took wing on a sharp right turn. As thousands watched the action on a video board near the finish line. Maier sailed 10 feet off the ground, parallel to it, and landed on his left shoulder and head.

Two retaining fences failed to halt Maier’s momentum.

Maier, who was fourth down the mountain, following what proved to be Cretier’s winning run, wasn’t the last to crash or to ski off the course or miss a gate trying to avoid a wreck.

Luca Cattaneo of Italy was flown by helicopter to a hospital where he was treated for a broken leg. Adrien Duvillard crashed as well but like Maier walked away.

Karl Schranz, the Austrian skiing legend who because of strict amateurism regulation was not allowed to compete in the Olympic downhill the last time the Winter Games were held on this island nation at Sapporo 26 years ago, stood in the crowd watching the carnage.

Although it was obvious there might be a problem at the early turn when Fritz Strobl of Austria nearly fell there on the second run down Happo’one, Schranz (a member of the Austrian ski federation) said Maier was not warned to take it easy at that point.

“You don’t tell a champion to hold back,” Schranz noted.

“That’s his life. That’s his style and that’s the way he is. That’s why he wins the (World Cup) overall.”

The problem, Schranz said, was twofold.

First, the top racers were unable to peak at the right moment with all the rain-snow-and-fog delays that postponed this event three times.

“From now on everything is luck, not race,” Maier had told Schranz the previous day.

“You concentrate on a certain day and a certain hour and minute and then it changes,” Schranz said.

Secondly, it was 56 degrees at the bottom when the downhill finally began, and 60 degrees when Moe took his run.

“The snow is soft and you have to go a closer line,” Schranz said, “but still you have the high speed.”

Moe, like Maier, refused to give into the conditions.

“I didn’t back off,” he said.

Cretier did, committing what is normally the unpardonable sin of standing up out of his tuck position.

Schranz tapped his head and gave credit where credit was due.

“He was very smart,” Schranz said. “He took a race to be fifth, sixth, seventh. But he (won) just because of standing up.

“He was opening up. He was not in the tuck position anymore. And so he went through the gates very smooth.”

The start of the race was delayed nearly an hour because of wind at the midpoint and a decision to shave some snow off the lip of the Alpine jump for safety sake.

But course managers could do nothing, apparently, to make the high turn that waylaid so many skiers safe, perhaps because the skiers would not allow caution to creep into their game plan.

And so Moe, and Andreas Schifferer of Austria and Kjetil Andre Aamodt of Norway and Maier wound up chasing but unable to catch Cretier, whose gold medal came as at least as great a surprise as Moe’s victory four years ago in Norway.

“Munster Man,” Moe said of Maier, “he was the favorite. But always in the Olympics, the underdogs always come through.”