Frank Thomas

Tomba Notable Sports Figures
Alberto Tomba
ing his twenty-first birthday, but after continuing the celebration
for a third night he came back to win the slalom.
From the beginning, Tomba was known for his eccentricity.
At the world skiing championships in 1987,
where Tomba won a bronze medal in the giant slalom,
he earned extra money by washing cars between races—
despite the fact that his family was extremely wealthy.
That eccentricity blossomed into flamboyance as Tomba
began winning in the 1987-88 season. He shouted “Sono
una bestia!” (“I am a beast!”) as he crossed the finish
line in Sestriere. In Madonna di Campiglio, where he
achieved his fourth victory of the 1987-88 season, his
cry was “I am the new messiah of skiing!” At the end of
one race, he cheerfully autographed several female fans’
bottoms. (They were wearing ski pants at the time.)
“I’m considered the clown of my team because I cannot
be serious for two minutes,” Tomba told Bruce Newman
of Sports Illustrated shortly before the 1988 Winter
Olympics. “I’m afraid if I become more serious I will
stop winning. Maybe I will learn not to say bad words in
the future, but that is the best to be hoped for.” Certainly,
it was too much to be hoped for that Tomba might be
well-behaved at the Olympic training camp in the Canadian
Rockies, where he slipped ice cubes down people’s
shirts and launched spitballs at meals.
Tomba’s reputation, for skiing prowess and for outrageous
behavior, only grew at the 1988 Calgary, Alberta
Olympics. Early on, he predicted that he would win the
slalom and giant slalom races. He did indeed win both
1622
Chronology
1966 Born December 19 in San Lazzaro di Savena, Italy
1987 Wins first points in a World Cup competition
1988 Competes in first Olympics, winning two gold medals
1989 Breaks collarbone during Super G race
1994 Competes in third Olympics, winning silver in slalom
1998 Retires from competitive skiing
2000 Makes acting debut in Alex l’ariete
of them — the giant slalom by the unheard of margin of
over one second, in a sport where victory is usually decided
by tenths or even hundredths of a second. In the
slalom, Tomba came from behind in the second run to
win, in dramatic fashion, by a mere six-hundredths of a
second. In between races, Tomba flirted shamelessly
with all of the female athletes, even promising German
figure skater Katerina Witt one of his gold medals. (She
passed up his offer and won one of her own.)
Tomba’s 1988-89 season was not as strong as the preceding
one, although he maintained his rock-star status
among his Italian fans. When he returned to Madonna di
Campiglio, a tiny hamlet with a year-round population
of just 1,000 people, for a World Cup event in December
1988, 20,000 people came to watch him compete, creating
a traffic jam that lasted for a full 24 hours. Tomba
won the slalom at Madonna di Campiglio, but it was his
only victory that season.
Even though he was adored by the fans, Tomba’s relationship
with his Italian teammates was often rocky.
Starting during the run-up to the 1992 Olympics, Tomba
trained separately from the rest of the Italian team,
which led to some jealousy and hard feelings. While
most skiers share coaches and trainers with a whole
team, at one point Tomba had his own coach, physical
therapist, and sports psychologist, as well as assorted
other trainers and assistants. Sometimes, when various
national teams were all assigned their own practice slots
before a competition, the “nation” of Tomba even got its
own training slot.
Slump and Comeback
After suffering a broken collarbone in 1989 and having
weak seasons in 1988-89 and 1989-90, Tomba lost
the 1991 World Cup in part as a result of a bizarre scandal
at Lake Louise, Canada. Tomba was in Lake Louise
preparing for a World Cup Super G race, when the manager
of the Lake Louise ski area accused him of bad behavior,
including knocking a female skier over while
cutting into a lift line, and not showing proper respect to
officers of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Tomba
would not be permitted to compete in that Super G unless
he publicly apologized. He refused, saying that he
had already apologized to the woman whom he had
bumped into, that he had done nothing else to apologize