The Way It Used to Be

Squaw Valley: the very name was enough to unhinge the venerable geezers In the international Olympic movement 20 years ago. It simultaneously evoked the worst of California and the wild West, the depravity of Tinseltown and the dangers of the untamed frontier. When the remote resort in the Sierra Nevada was chosen as host of the 1960 Winter Games, one French official fretted: "How are we going to put our young men and women to bed at an early hour if there's a chorus line and Frankie Sinatra singing across the road?"

As it turned out, a terrific blizzard struck Squaw Valley just before the Games. No Gauls perished in the snow, despite the .fears of the French skiing official, but whether they made bed check is another matter (Sinatra was not there, but Danny Kaye and Red Skelton were).

For all the qualms, Squaw Valley, the last Winter Olympics held in the U.S., proved a rousing success. Except for the cross-country races, all the events were within walking distance of each other, giving the place an intimacy absent in most Olympics. In retrospect, Squaw Valley seems less commercial, truer to Olympic ideals, almost quaint. "It was the last of the small Olympics," says Penny Pitou, a U.S. skier who won two silver medals.

By Lake Placid standards, Squaw Valley was a modest outing indeed. There were fewer events (27 vs. 38), athletes (700 vs. 1,400) and journalists (600 vs. 3,200). The cost was a mere $20 million (nearly $50 million in today's dollars), compared with $178 million for the 1980 festival.

The 1960 Winter Olympics was a watershed nonetheless: for the first time, the Games were televised daily. The telecasts introduced winter sports to the many Americans who did not know the difference between schuss and Schnee. The Games were such a European preserve that CBS, which paid a piddling $50,000 for the broadcast rights, was slow to line up sponsors for its 15 scheduled hours of live and taped reports. It was a far cry from the electronic blanket that today threatens to suffocate the Games. ABC paid $15.5 million for the rights to Lake Placid, and will spend nearly $25 million more to cover the competition. Some 800 ABC employees, more people than competed in 1960, will be on hand. An estimated 180 million Americans will watch some portion of the 51 1/2 hr. of coverage.

Twenty years ago the Soviets were the dominant competitors, winning seven gold medals and a passel of bronzes and silvers. The cold war was thawing, and the U.S.S.R. athletes were popular with reporters and fellow competitors. The vaunted Austrian men skiers spent much of their time feuding among themselves over ski endorsements, and were dealt a double blow when Switzerland's Roger Staub captured the giant slalom and France's Jean Vuarnet placed first in the downhill.

Americans thrilled to the individual victories of Figure Skaters Carol Heiss and David Jenkins, but it was an acrobatic goalie named Jack McCartan and an underdog U.S. hockey team that won their hearts. McCartan had 39 saves

in a 2-1 win over Canada, and was equally brilliant in a 3-2 victory over the Soviets. The U.S. players needed a victory in their final game against Czechoslovakia to win their first hockey gold medal. Behind 4-3 after two frustrating periods, they were visited in their dressing room by the Soviet team captain, who urged them to take oxygen. With Roger Christian of Minnesota firing in three goals (he scored four on the day), the Americans roared back in the final period to win, 9-4. "The big joke," McCartan recalls, "was that the guys who didn't take the oxygen were the ones who scored the goals."

The one real villain of Squaw Valley was a stretch of snow on the women's downhill course. Shooting down the steepest part of the run, skiers would suddenly hit a bumpy, hard-packed mound that sent them flying just as they reached a 90DEG bend, appropriately dubbed "the airplane corner." The high hopes of the American women crashed at that turn: Betsy Snite and two teammates spilled. Pitou did not fall, but she tottered, squandering precious ticks of the clock and losing the gold medal by 1 sec. to Germany's Heidi Biebl.

Most of the athletes at Squaw Valley would probably have had difficulty making the Olympics today. Training, techniques and equipment are more sophisticated, and times are dramatically faster for speed events. Sadly, though, many 1980 Olympians may wind up remembering the sacrifice more than the joy. Says Pitou, now a travel agent: "The kids aren't having fun any more. They're training to death." The real winners may not be the ones who leave Lake Placid with gold but the ones who take away golden memories. Speed Skater Bill Disney won only a silver at Squaw Valley, but no matter. "It was beautiful," he says. "There will never be another Olympics like it."

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