The Calculating Daredevil

Ski-proud Austrians can hardly believe their eyes. Their veteran skiers, the finest in the world, are being raced on even terms this season by a freckled-faced 21-year-old named Bud Werner, from Steamboat Springs, Colo. Werner is the same headlong, headstrong American who fell so ingloriously in the 1956 Winter Olympics at Cortina, Italy. But this year he is flashing down the wickedly slick Alpine slopes as though they were Colorado foothills. This week all Austria is wondering uneasily how the slight, boyish American will do in next week's world championships at Bad Gastein. Says Austrian Othmar Schneider, Werner's canny coach: "For the first time, Austrians fear an American skier."

A private first class on detached duty from a U.S. Army supply unit (at Fort Carson, Colo.), Werner first startled the complacent Austrians earlier this month with his showing in the Lauberhornrennen at Wengen, Switzerland, the opening of the international Alpine competition. Wearing a leather crash helmet, he slashed through the downhill course, teetered crazily on one ski for 30 meters, and finished just .3 sec. slower than World Champion Toni Sailer (TIME, Feb. 4, 1957), the Austrian L'il Abner who won three Olympic gold medals at Cortina. The following day, when Sailer missed a gate on the slalom to put him out of the running, Werner finished third in the event. Together, the two events gave him a first in the Combination (downhill plus slalom).

"Thanks." -A week later, Werner climbed to the top of the downhill course at the Hahnenkamm in Kitzbuehel, Austria, and peered into the fog that blotted out the run 20 meters away. "Good luck, Buddy," called American Teammate Tom Corcoran. "Thanks," said Werner, jabbed his poles, ducked into a streamlined crouch, and shot into the murk.

Austrian ski fans, waiting below by the finish line, stared up into the fog and listened to the quadrilingual loudspeaker trace Werner's plummeting progress. Suddenly there was Werner himself, flat out, swinging magnificently to his right to take the last steep schuss. Despite the handicap of going first and "pushing snow," he covered the 3,200-meter course in 2:43.9, a full 2.1 see. faster than the record held by Sailer. It did not much matter that three Austrians, all of whom had grown up on the tricky bumps and turns of the Streif course, followed Werner in even better time. Ski fans poked each other and conceded: "Ja, der Amerikaner geht gut. Ja." For by any standard, Werner's time on an unfamiliar run under atrocious conditions, plus his Combination victory in the Lauberhornrennen, marked him one of the top skiers in the world, and the ablest American ever to compete in the Alps.

"A New Werner." What amazes Austrians most is Werner's rapid development from a brilliant but erratic youngster into a calculating competitor. Werner, who learned to ski at four, has always had plenty of promise, but when he sprawled in the snow at the Olympics during a typically headlong plunge, Europe's experts shrugged him off. Even his winning the U.S. downhill and giant slalom crowns last season did not much impress Europe. But Werner learned from pratfalls. Says Sailer, now a good friend of the U.S. champion: "There is a new Werner out there now--he's skiing in control."

To master the new control, Werner started to get ready for the season as long ago as last summer, when he spent two months on the slopes of the Andes. This winter he put the finishing touches on a new ski technique. "I had been putting too much weight on my inside [uphill] ski, and I tried to ski more on my outside [downhill] ski," he says. "I'm not so wild now. I want to go as fast as I can and still stand up."

This week the crew-cut Coloradan and most other great skiers are training together on the slopes of Bad Gastein for the world championships. Tanned and trim, they are a friendly lot, bound together by the pleasures and perils of their craft. But when the competition starts, Bud Werner is ready to battle his buddies, is even willing to flout the maxim--especially fitted to skiing--that pride goeth before a fall. "If I say so--and I see no reason why I shouldn't--I expect to get some of the medals," he says. "In fact, I shall be greatly disappointed and even surprised if I don't."

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