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Show Another downhill skiing specialist comes through in the clutch for U.S. Toni Vogrinec, the Yugoslavian alpine director, stood on the sidelines, shaking his head. "The American," he smiled. "There is something about them in the big events." n- Vogrinec had just watched American Ameri-can Doug Lewis win a bronze medal in Championship men's downhill in Bormio, Italy. Doug Lewis? This 21-year-old Vermont native is hardly a household name, unlike fellow downhill specialist Bill Johnson. John-son. But, like Johnson, Lewis seeins to perform best when the stakes are the highest. His third-place finish in Bormio Sunday was his best showing ever in a World Cup event. It was also the first downhill World Championship medal in history for a U.S. male skier. The winner of the World Cham pionship downhill was Switzerland's Pirmin Zurbriggen. apparently fully recovered from his recent knee surgery. Teammate Peter Mueller took the silver medal. The next American was Bill Johnson in 14th. Following the race a reporter spotted Lewis signing autographs and asked how many times he had performed that ritual. "I don't know, but now it means something," Lewis replied. "Before, I think people used them to start fires." The U.S.A. 's only other medal in the World Championships (as of Feb. 5) came from Tamara McKinney, McKin-ney, whose 22nd place in the Jan. 31 downhill combined with a third place in the Feb. 4 slalom was good enough for the bronze medal in the wmhirtpr) medal. For McKinney, who won the overall women's W orld Cup title in 1983, it was the first medal in Olympic or World Championship competition. The gold medal in that combined event went to another seasoned competitor, Switzerland's Erika Hess. In second was Sylvia Eder of Austria. Seventh place went to Eva Twardokens of Squaw Valley. The only other gold medal handed out during the World Championships as of Feb. 5 went to Michela Figini of Switzerland, who has been almost unbeatable since the beginning of the year. Figini buried the rest of the field in the women's downhill Feb. 3, winning by 1.61 seconds over Swiss teammate Ariane Ehrat and Austria's Aus-tria's Katrin Gutensohn, who tied for the silver medal. The best the U.S. could do in that race was a 20th place from Holly Flanders, 23rd from Debbie Armstrong, Arm-strong, 25th from Cindy Nelson and 27 th from Cindy Oak. In other news from the World Championships, West Germany's Irene Epple announced her retirement retire-ment Feb. 1 to make room for a younger teammate. "I knew the younger ones had a better chance here than I did," she offered, "and I thought one of them should have my place in the start list. So this is the end for me." On the home front, Pat Ahern claimed his third U.S. National Nordic Combined title at the U.S. National Championship is Laconia, New Hampshire. Also at Laconia, Chris Hastings of Norwich, Vermont, younger brother of Jeff, won his first U.S. National jumping crown. |