When former downhiller Bill Johnson attempted an Olympic comeback at age 40 and nearly killed himself in the process, it seemed a pathetic attempt to regain something he had lost long before.
But one of his teammates on the 1984 Olympic team is racing again, and it’s all good.
Phil Mahre, who won a gold medal in slalom at the Sarajevo Winter Games, where Johnson took the downhill, has made a goal of qualifying for the U.S. Alpine Championships next year at age 50. His quest brings him to Steamboat Springs on Thursday and Friday for Rocky Mountain Trophy Series giant slalom races.
Because he’s merely trying to make it to nationals, not to ski his way back onto the World Cup, it’s not really a comeback.
“That’s what everybody’s calling it,” Mahre said, “but that’s not what it is.”
It’s just a great athlete – the greatest America has seen in skiing – pursuing a goal for the sheer pleasure of challenging himself. That makes it as compelling for his fans as Johnson’s desperate misadventure was disconcerting.
“It’s kind of a two-year project,” Mahre said last week. “I’ll be 50 in May, so I’ve got this year and next year to get the thing done.”
Mahre won the World Cup overall title three times and holds the U.S. record for World Cup wins (27). He retired to raise a family in 1984 when he was 26.
“The family is pretty much grown now; the youngest is 18,” Mahre said. “I kicked this around a little the last couple of years, and 40 passed me by, so I said, ‘Why not at 50?”‘
Mahre doesn’t have as much time to train as he would like, and he has taken a few lumps. A couple of weeks ago he crashed and tore a right biceps tendon, but he’s still racing and having fun.
“There’s times when you just don’t feel like you fit in,” Mahre said. “Most of the kids weren’t even born when I won my medals. The parents are there, they’re all excited about it. But the young kids, you kind of look around and go, ‘I wonder what they’re thinking.’
“Then when they see I’m fairly competitive, they take another look because it’s kind of neat, I guess.”
The Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club is looking forward to seeing him compete on Mount Werner’s See Me trail. Runs are at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. both days.
Chris Puckett, a former U.S. Ski Team racer who runs the alpine program for the club, is eager to see his childhood hero and role model bashing gates again.
“He never stopped getting the most updated skis K2 made, he never stopped testing himself at the American Ski Classic and all these other (old-timers) races and events he goes to,” said Puckett, 37. “He skied through the change in equipment. It’s not like Bill Johnson, who didn’t race for a long time, then came back and tried to use his old technique on new equipment.”
The equipment has changed dramatically. On the World Cup, Mahre raced on 204-centimeter slalom skis and 208-centimeter GS skis. Now he’s on 166s in slalom, 193s in GS.
“When I free ski, I can work on some of the new movement patterns, but when I get in a course, you kind of revert back to what you’ve done for 40 years,” Mahre said. “It’s difficult, and I struggle at it.”
Giant slalom has come more easily, but it’s still a difficult adjustment because it’s less dynamic than it was in his day. Today the skis do most of the work.
“You just go from one edge to a new edge and there’s no stepping whatsoever,” Mahre said. “It doesn’t feel like you’re trying, you’re just kind of gliding along.”
Slalom has become “super slalom,” Mahre says, because of shorter skis and gates positioned farther apart.
“It’s a different game for me, and the one I’m probably having the most fun at right now, because it’s the biggest change and it’s the most trying,” Mahre said. “I enjoy it a lot, although I struggle at it more than giant slalom.”
The goal is to improve his ranking enough this season to bring nationals within his grasp next season. He readily admits he probably couldn’t beat Bode Miller or Ted Ligety – today or a year from now.
“If I were able to train five or seven days a week for a couple months, I could get close,” Mahre said. “But right now, I wouldn’t be within five seconds a run, probably.”
Doesn’t matter.
“Everyone’s excited to see how well he can do,” Puckett said. “I think a lot of people will be curious and rooting him on to make the nationals, because it’s kind of a neat goal.”
