Giant Slalom, Women

The favorite was Switzerland’s Erika Hess, overall World Cup champion in 1982 (and would repeat in 1984), and slalom World Cup winner in 1981, 1982, and 1983. In 1984 she would also win the combined GS/super-G World Cup title, but her first run in Sarajevo did her in. Finishing only 11th, she came back on the second run with the third best time but it only moved her up to seventh overall. The first run was led by American Christin Cooper, who was a top international skier, having won silver medals in slalom and GS at the 1982 World Championships, but she was not the best American, that title going to Tamara McKinney, the 1983 overall World Cup winner. McKinney also struggled on the first run, placing eighth, coming back to win the second run, but falling just short of the medals in fourth place. The runner-up on the first run was another American, this one a much bigger surprise, as Debbie Armstrong had only one podium finish in her first year on the World Cup circuit, a third in a super-G a few weeks before the Olympics. On the second run, the happy-go-lucky Armstrong was determined to enjoy herself and simply have fun in what for her was an unknown situation. She placed fourth on the second run, but when Cooper almost missed the fifth gate, costing her time which eventually placed her seventh on the second run, the gold medal was Armstrong’s.

Cooper and Armstrong later repaid the citizens of Sarajevo who had treated them so well. Cooper co-founded Humanitarian Olympians for Peace, which aided the later to be war-torn Bosnian capital with lifts of tons of winter clothing and sports equipment. Armstrong helped found Global ReLeaf Sarajevo, which helps to re-forest the devastated regions around Sarajevo.