Pointing for Innsbruck

The best skiers in the world have always come from the European Alps, where the first thing a boy learns is that he can parlay a little skill and rosy good looks into a career teaching rich American divorcees to snowplow. The angriest skiers in the world come, at the moment, from the U.S.. which has an old score to settle: in 24 years of trying. U.S. skiers have won just three gold medals in the Winter Olympics. Worse yet. all three were won by women--the last by Andrea Mead Lawrence in 1952--and no U.S. male has ever finished higher than fourth in an Olympic Alpine race.

Now there are signs of change. On the powder-covered slopes of Idaho's Sun Valley and Alaska's Mount Alyeska. U.S. skiers fought for places on the Olympic team that will travel to Innsbruck. Austria, in 1964. For the first time in years, an air of real optimism hung over the Olympic trials. Seven times last year. U.S. skiers beat Europe's best. And this year, their performance at Sun Valley and Mount Alyeska was so good that U.S. Olympic Coach Bob Beattie could predict: ''We've got a half-dozen skiers who can win at Innsbruck.'' Beattie's best:

WALLACE ("BUD") WERNER. 27. of Steamboat Springs, Colo., swooshed boldly through Sun Valley's downhill course in 2 min. 20.5 sec. to beat (by .9 sec.) Switzerland's Jos Minsch--winner of Innsbruck's pre-Olympic race. Next day. Werner won again in the twisting slalom. At Mount Alyeska, he beat Minsch in the downhill--only to lose by a bare .1 sec. to another American. Plagued with bad luck. Werner took an inglorious spill in the 1956 Olympics, had to sit out the 1960 games with a broken leg. He intends to make up for it in 1964.

WILLIAM MAROLT. 19. of Aspen. Colo., was the surprising youngster who beat both Werner and Minsch in Alaska by streaking over Mount Alyeska's 8.440-ft. downhill course at a speed of 44.7 m.p.h. Son of a bartender. Bill is a University of Colorado sophomore and the best new downhill prospect in the U.S.

CHUCK FERRIES. 23. of Houghton. Mich., was the talk of Europe last year: he scored successive slalom victories at Austria's Kitzbuhel and Italy's Cortina, handily beating Europe's top skiers. Though not at his best at Sun Valley and Mount Alyeska (two fourths in the downhill). Ferries is a daredevil racer who has developed control to match his speed. "At the very least, you have to have confidence. I have."

JEAN SAUBERT. 20. of Lakeviewr, Ore., is a wondrously versatile skier who ranks among the world's best at all three Alpine events. The brown-haired Oregon State coed swept to victory in both the downhill and the slalom at Sun Valley, beating Germany's Barbi Henneberger, one of Europe's best. Then at Mount Alyeska, she won the giant slalom.

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