Weinbrecht Is Best U.S. Hope -- American Eyes Gold Medal For `Skiing The Bumps' - Freestyle Moguls
Growing up around West Milford, N.J., Donna Weinbrecht was a typical tomboy. She was into gym class and "weird sports." She enjoyed catching turtles and snakes and frogs, skateboarding or playing hockey.
Now, at 26, Weinbrecht says she is "purely feminine, but I kick butt in what I do."
What she does is ski the bumps. And with freestyle mogul skiing a full-medal event for the first time in Olympic history, Weinbrecht is the United States' best hope for a gold medal in Albertville.
Weinbrecht is the reigning world champion and two-time defending World Cup champion in her specialty. Her coach claims she is better than half the men on the World Cup circuit.
Weinbrecht's road to the Olympics began 19 years ago when the Warll family moved next door. The Warlls came from Canada, where they had been ski instructors. And one of the first things they did was start a ski club.
"The whole lake joined together," recalled Donna's mother, Caroline.
Soon the Weinbrechts were spending every weekend at Hidden Valley, a small New Jersey ski area. A few years later, her mother was struggling down a slope at Hidden Valley when she realized that Donna, Jimmy and their younger sister Joy were skiing backward while talking to her. "I realized they were bored, and we had to get a bigger hill," she said.
The Weinbrechts built a second home soon after that in the Killington ski area in Vermont, where Weinbrecht honed her skills.
After graduation from high school, to her mother's horror, Wieinbrecht was a genuine ski bum. She skied all day and worked all night as a waitress at a place called the Pasta Pot.
"She was getting really mad," she said of her mother. "She was putting the law down. She didn't want a ski bum in the family. And I was living the life, skiing in the winter, waitressing, going down to the Jersey shore in summer and working in stores."
Her mother's concerns finally prompted her to really see what she could do with skiing.
"I really focused," she said. "My personality changed. I got quieter. My mind was always thinking."
At the '87 nationals, Weinbrecht finished fourth and made the national team.
She went to a summer training camp where she met her first real coach, Park Smalley of the national team. Back home, her mother, now a convert, went to work to find a corporate sponsor to pick up Donna's expenses.
"It's funny because now she's my biggest supporter," Weinbrecht said of her mother. "She's my manager, my press agent. She writes letters for me, contracts."
The winter of 1987, Donna traveled with the team to Europe but never got to compete because she was so new. Then Haley Wolff suffered an injury, and Weinbrecht replaced her in an event at Mount Gabriel in Canada and finished second. She did well enough the rest of that season to be named rookie of the year on the World Cup circuit.
In 1989-90, Weinbrecht dominated women's mogul skiing, winning eight straight World Cup events and the season title. In 1990-91, she matched her eight World Cup victories and overall title of the previous season and added a world championship to her resume.
She has become so dominant that she and her coaches have begun to measure her not against the other women but against the men's field. In a World Cup event at Calgary, Canada, in 1990, Weinbrecht became the first woman to perform a double aerial maneuver - a twister spread, and then a double twister - in competition.
Forever rejecting limits, however, Weinbrecht harbors the vision of becoming the first woman to do a triple - and the first to win the gold medal in the Olympics.
"There's pressure there," she acknowledged. "But you have to remain focused. . . . on that day, do the best you can and that's all you can do. You don't bring the whole world on your shoulders.
"I do want to do well. But it will be for me first, and then bring home the gold for the U.S."
. FOCUS ON SKI JUMPING, NORDIC COMBINED, FREESTYLE. . SKI JUMPING:. -- Normal hill: Men's individual, Feb. 9.. -- Large hill: Men's individual, Feb. 16.. -- Large hill: Men's team, Feb. 14.. . NORDIC COMBINED:. -- Individual: Feb. 11-12.. -- Team: Feb. 17-18.. . FREESTYLE:. -- Moguls: Men & women, Feb. 12-13.. -- Ballet: Men & women, Feb. 9-10 (demonstration).. -- Aerial: Men & women, Feb. 15-16 (demonstration).. . MEN'S MEDAL PICKS:. -- Normal hill: Toni Nieminen, Finland.. -- Large hill: Andi Felder, Austria.. -- Large hill, team: Austria.. -- Nordic combined: Klaus Sulzenbacher, Austria. -- Nordic-combined, team: Austria.. -- Moguls: Edgar Grospiron, France. . WOMEN'S MEDAL PICK:. -- Moguls: Donna Weinbrecht, U.S..