Alphand scales twin peaks

Frenchman gains revenge as Tomba waits to claim a place in skiing histo ry. Richard Williams reports from Kitzbuhel

LUC ALPHAND of France won his first World Cup downhill race at the age of 29 yesterday morning. But, after eight years of trying, he wasn't satisfied. A couple of hours later, as if to convince himself that he really had done it, he went back up the Hahnenkamm mountain, at Kitzbuhel, and won another one.

There was a sort of justice in this double victory for the Frenchman on Austrian territory. Four weeks ago, in the season's opening race at Val d'Isere, Alphand looked well set for a home win until a 20-year-old Austrian, Josef "Pepi" Strobl, taking par t in the first World Cup race of his life and coming down from a starting position so late that the lights had almost been switched off, dashed the cup from his lips.

"This was a big revenge for me," Alphand said yesterday, his pleasure barely diminished by the knowledge that his wins had been recorded over a shortened version of the legendary course on the Hahnenkamm mountain.

While there have been many better downhill races at Kitzbuhel than yesterday's, surely none has been prettier. The metre and a half of snow that landed on the old Tyrolean town between Tuesday night and Friday morning left the place looking like a tourism director's dream, but forced the organisers to draw the teeth of the notorious Streif piste.

Under an unblemished Bugatti-blue sky, with the first real snow of the winter frosting the trees and icing the churches, and with sub-zero temperatures making the white stuff crackle underfoot, the racers looked down on an unfamiliar view. Missing was the jolting sheer drop from the traditional starting hut followed by the double trauma of the impossibly steep Mausefalle and the hurtling drop of the Steilhang. In a downhill season which, until this weekend, had been wrecked by the absence of snow, the sheer volume of it forced the race director, the triple Olympic champion Toni Sailer, to shorten his historic 3.2km home course by lopping off the first 460 metres.

"Anyone who does well here today will always know that he didn't face the full challenge," said Martin Bell, the veteran British downhiller, who finished 42nd and 31st yesterday. Others felt that the 55th edition of the Hahnenkammrennen retained its essence despite the loss.

"The start area is kind of a sacred place," said Ed Podivinsky, the 24-year-old Canadian who came fourth in the first of yesterday's races behind Alphand, Patrick Ortlieb of Austria and Kristian Ghedina of Italy. "It always makes the racers nervous. Theygo quiet up there. But today the guys were much more relaxed. I even heard some jokes. But it's still bumpy, and it's still icy, and you never feel like you're in control."

Pushing off from an improvised gate at the top of the Steilhang, the racers were still confronted by a severe test from the Streif's usual combination of sheet ice and bone-rattling corrugations. "It's an old course," Podivinsky pointed out, "so it does n 't have to abide by the new regulations, which means that it's steeper, narrower and more dangerous."

And even with its incisors removed, the Streif could bite. Several racers brushed the safety net at the bottom of the Steilhang in the first race; in the second, Hannes Trinkl of Austria met it head-first. Werner Perathoner of Italy, the first starter inthe first race, fell within sight of the line, a trick later repeated by Chad Fleischer of the United States, who bounced a few times on the hard-pack before rising and bowing to all corners of the house.

There were no serious injuries, which supported the race committee's decision both to abbreviate the course and double up the races. The most lurid of the crashes saw another Italian, Pietro Vitalini, losing his grip on the long traverse and shooting over the safety barrier before somersaulting down a steep slope for 60 or 70 metres. Amazingly, he was undamaged.

Martin Bell happened to catch Vitalini's crash on television just as he was leaving the mountain restaurant where the racers assemble before the start. "You have to decide whether you want to watch the guys who go down before you, in order to get an ideaof the conditions," he said. "The risk is that you might see something you don't want to see." Bell had decided not to watch, but then thought he would just take a peek to check on the race. Bad timing.

Graham Bell, the younger of the two brothers, did not quite match last year's outstanding 12th place here, but 21st and 19th places were a decent reward for a highly motivated skier who continues to suffer from a lack of the technical assistance available to richer national teams. Martin's glory years are behind him now, but Graham could yet leave amark, given the support available to someone like Alessandro Fattori, a 21-year-old Italian who started 60th but finished fourth in the second race (behind Armin Assinger of Austria and Perathoner, who was getting his own back on the mountain).

For once, however, the downhill races were the supporting attractions at Kitzbuhel this weekend. Today most of Italy will cross the border to gather at the foot of the Hahnenkamm in the hope that Alberto Tomba can make it a record six wins out of six slalom races this season. "La Bomba", the Bolognese playboy who outranks even Roberto Baggio in the affections of Italian sports fans, is skiing's only promotable personality, and will probably retire at the end of this season, after adding a world championship to his laurels at Sierra Nevada next month.

It is the measure of his importance to the World Cup that today's schedule is being kept clear for the televising of his race. Toni Sailer admitted that the top of the Streif could probably have been made ready in time for a full-distance downhill race today, and in a normal year that would have been the natural option. But nothing, even in the temple of downhill racing, can be allowed to interfere with the international appeal that, in the world of skiing in 1995, is Tomba's alone. For which Luc Alphand, the first man ever to win two World Cup downhills in a single day, can give thanks.