"You Never Get Old"

Steep and unforgiving, the ski track lay like a white scar along the face of Sweden's Areskutan Mountain. Half a dozen of the world's best skiers had already tumbled into bone-bruising falls as they swooped down the dangerous drop, going all-out for the downhill championship of the world. Norway's Stein Eriksen might well have taken it easy. Far ahead on points after winning the slalom and giant slalom, the Oslo ski salesman could have coasted home to a safe, slow finish, still a sure bet for the championship of championships, the Alpine Combination. But Stein, as usual, drove all the way; even a spill could not keep him from finishing fast, only 5.1 seconds behind the downhill winner, Austria's Christian Pravda.

Eriksen's spectacular performance at Are last week had critics and admirers applauding such things as his timing, temperament and will power. Stein himself credits his training, which includes a stiff course of acrobatics. Good skis count too, he admits, and he races on skis of his own design. About four inches longer than normal, the waxed boards are scored with 16 small grooves to keep them steadier than the traditional single-grooved runners.

Looking back on the field that trailed him to most of the finish lines at Are, Eriksen picked the young (16) French prodigy Francois Bonlieu (who finished second in the giant slalom) as his chief rival for the 1956 Olympics. But the 26-year-old Norwegian speedster expects to be schussing home a champion for years to come. "You never get old when you ski," says he. "Skiing is for me the extreme expression of joie de vivre."

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