Julian Drew : Skiing
Alex Heath, South Africa’s representative in Alpine skiing at the Winter Olympics starting on Saturday, is not your ordinary sort of guy. In November 1996 he suffered a fractured skull and brain haemorrhage that put him in a coma for 18 hours after a fall from the climbing wall in the gymnasium at his American Ski Academy. Only in mid- January was he allowed back on skis again and two weeks later he was skiing on the toughest giant slalom course in the world at the world championships in Sestrire.
In July he was airlifted to hospital in Bloemfontein after being knocked out at the South African skiing championships in Tiffindell. A few days later he turned in some of the best results yet seen at the Sports Science Institute in Cape Town when he underwent physical evaluation.
To call Heath a headbanger in the conventional sense of the word may be a little unkind, but when he tells you, “My head’s fine now,” you take the pronouncement with a pinch of salt. Few people would consider doing any sport so soon after similar setbacks but to indulge in one which entails travelling at 140km/h down a 45 degree slope would appear to be pushing the limits of sanity.
Heath’s Canadian coach Tom Barbeau — a former technical coach to the Canadian ski team — believes that far from being crazy Heath has all the attributes of a champion skier. “It is a courageous sport because of the speed and risks involved and Alex is as courageous and driven as anyone I’ve ever seen,” says Barbeau.
“He has incredible self-belief and he’s a very intelligent young man. He’s smart enough too realise what it takes to win and then go and do it. The only way to ski fast is to ski by feel and Alex has that but he’s also very good visually. It’s like the old saying ‘monkey see monkey do’ because he can copy you straight away. He’s skied with a lot of the best racers in the world and he has a clear vision of what they do. He’s improving all the time and has all the right qualities.”
Heath’s career was on a major upward spiral at the time of his fractured skull and it took him some time to get back on track. “When it happened I didn’t really know how bad it was and I thought I’d be back skiing the next day. But then I wasn’t allowed to and I was very frustrated because everyone was telling me to be more careful when I ski. I don’t like that. I just want to go,” says Heath.
Sestrière was a tough place to make his comeback but although he didn’t do as well as he might have he certainly showed he’s a fighter. He finished 42nd in the giant slalom out of 110 starters even though his start number was 74. Only the top 15 or so racers managed to ski in ideal conditions before the snow began to cut up and holes appeared. Those further back had little chance of making an impact.
But the course was so tough and conditions so treacherous that even 12 out of the first 25 starters failed to complete the course including defending champion Alberto Tomba of Italy.
“The fact that he was even able to compete in Sestrière was amazing but to actually make it to the bottom was something else. It was unbelievably difficult and he really showed us just how tough he is and what kind of physical shape he was in. A lot of it was heart but it was also his fitness from before the accident that enabled him to finish,” says Barbeau.
Heath says that before the accident he was the fittest he’s ever been and only now is he getting back to the same shape. His racing also took a knock because starting positions are determined by a skier’s International Ski Federation (FIS) ranking points and he only managed to do a few races last season.
“In the short time I could race I improved my slalom points but I didn’t have the strength for the giant slalom.” Of the four Alpine events slalom and giant slalom are more technically orientated with a lot of gates over a short distance while super G and downhill are speed events over longer pistes with less turns.
Heath spent much of his summer in camps, one on snow in Colorado and two on glaciers in Austria and France, focusing mainly on his giant slalom technique. He then started gate training much earlier than usual at a training camp in Colorado and did his first races at the end of November.
Although his ranking points in all the events except downhill were below the 140 required to qualify for the Olympics he still had to convince the South African Olympic Committee (Nocsa) he was up to the task after his injury.
In his first few races the conditions were too bad to allow him to ski well with his poor start numbers but then things changed in Canada in early December. “I was lucky to get some races where I could ski well and I wasn’t affected too much by the course conditions and things went unbelievably well for me.”
Starting 41st in Stoneham, Quebec in the giant slalom he moved up to seventh after the first run and eventually finished fifth after the second run and a week later in Le Relais he finished ninth in a slalom race. That gave Heath a lot of confidence and although snow conditions have not allowed him to repeat those results he believes that when he gets back to America the adjusted ranking points from those races will give him improved start positions and the chance of doing even better.
“I had to prove to Nocsa that I wasn’t going to make a fool out of them in Nagano and I think those results showed them that I mean business.”
Heath and Barbeau spent last week in South Africa before leaving with the South African team for Japan on Thursday. Despite wilting temperatures and the absence of snow, Barbeau says it was time well spent.
“Alex had to race a lot to qualify so he didn’t train much and lost a lot of his suppleness. South Africa allowed him to refuel and recover and we managed to have almost a mini pre-season here. We had him in the pool doing some exercises which simulated the effort required in his skiing and he showed that he’s got the anaerobic endurance and the strength that he needs for Nagano.
“I would say we’ve got him back to the level he was at when he had those good results in December.”
Although Heath is only officially entered in the giant slalom he is hoping to also do the slalom, super G and particularly the combined event which is a downhill run and two slalom runs. That would give hime two valuable races on the same slalom course he will ski on in his best discipline on the last day of the Alpine skiing programme.
At the 1995 world championships in Spain Heath was 30th in both the slalom and giant slalom out of fields of over a hundred and was the youngest competitor. “He knows he’s had a 30th place when he wasn’t even skiing well so who knows, with a bit of luck he could get a 20th in Nagano. That’s not a medal but you must remember he’s still a boy in this game,” says Barbeau.
Heath is making no such predictions and simply says, “I’ll be happy if I just ski as well as I know I can. That would be a success for me right now regardless of where I finish.”