St. Moritz Sleigh Ride

The loudspeaker crackled in the crisp mountain air: "The next runner will be Bibbia." On a Swiss hilltop high above St. Moritz, Nino Bibbia, 35, a brawny Italian grocer, buckled on his crash helmet and goggles, carefully checked the heavy leather pads on his knees and elbows. He adjusted steel shields that guarded the back of each hand, then he threw himself onto a sled no bigger (3 1/2 ft.) than a youngster's Flexible Flyer.

But this was no bellywhopping slide over a gentle snow-covered slope. On his beefed-up steel "skeleton," Bibbia was running down the ice-slick Cresta sled run. His objective: a descent fast enough to win him the Cresta sledders' Carder Cup. Face low in the biting wind, his nose scant inches from the ice, Bibbia scudded into Curzon, the first turn on the twisting chute. The special, spike-toed Cresta shoes that were his only brakes were clear of the glass-hard groove as he slid along, and by the time he hit the straightaway at Junction, dropping as much as one foot for every three he covered, Bibbia was close to 70 m.p.h. He "scratched ice" as he negotiated the wicked 90DEG turns called Battledore and Shuttlecock, but only enough to slow his sled by a fraction. Toes up once more, he skittered under a railroad bridge past nasty little bends called Scylla and Charybdis. At the finish line he was traveling 90 m.p.h. Bibbia's time for the 1,320-yd. dive: a winning 57.7 sec.

Badge of Courage. Anyone with a taste for such high-speed thrills and the price of a ticket to St. Moritz can try the Cresta chute for 24 Swiss francs ($5.60). During most of its accident-spotted, 72-year history, Cresta has catered to blue-blooded sportsmen--nobility and well-heeled wanderers with an urge to prove their courage by risking their necks. Only in 1948, when the Winter Olympics were held at St. Moritz, did Cresta-type sledding get worldwide recognition as part ot the games. But year after year the international brigade returns. There are always a few novices anxious to earn the red-and-white badge which signifies that they have conquered Cresta and entitles them to a 20% discount at the Kulm Hotel bar. Lately, the Cresta roster has been larded with the names of such middle-class sportsmen as Bibbia, come to compete with nobility in the Alps. Last week, among Grocer Bibbia's fellow sleighriders were such visitors as the Marquis de la Falaise and Liechtenstein's Prince Constantine. Among them, however, there was only one man considered a sure bet to do better than the Italian. He was a Canadian World War II bomber pilot named Doug Connor, holder of just about every record on the Cresta books and winner of nearly every other Cresta cup this year.

All the Records. When it came his turn last week, Connor, 38, and now an aviation executive, had to better all his past speeds to catch Bibbia. Calmly he watched a procession of other competitors fly into trouble at Shuttlecock. One shot over the lip of the turn and disappeared in the trailside snow. "He's waving to show that at least one arm is not broken," was the announcer's casual comment. Then Connor slammed onto his skeleton.

Chuteside watchers could hear him shout as he hit Battledore: "Faster, goddammit. Let's go faster." At Shuttlecock he misjudged by the merest fraction of an inch. His spiked shoes grabbed empty air as he catapulted over the rim and soared ten feet into the snow. Seconds later he was up, unhurt--but disqualified from a Cresta race for the first time in his career.

Undaunted, Connor came back the next day to win the Stagni Handicap. Then, in the Grand National, biggest race of all,

Connor clocked such a fast first run that Bibbia made a dangerous mistake trying to catch up and came to woe at Shuttlecock. With Bibbia disqualified, Doug Connor was an easy winner and once more the undisputed champion of Cresta Run.

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