Jamais Vu!

When Jean-Claude Killy and Marielle Goitschel retired after their stunning victories in the 1968 Winter Olympics. French competitive skiing seemed to have been set back for years. Not so. In this season's World Cup competition, the French have already produced a dozen or more brilliant young skiers who are all but sweeping their rivals off the slopes. At Murren. Switzerland, last week, the French speedsters won three events, to give their team a record total of 20 victories in 31 races so far this season. Says one jubilant French fan: "It's not a case of dej`a vu but jamais vu!"

Jamais have the margins of victory been so consistently great. In a sport that measures superiority in hundredths of a second, the French have been winning by as much as three seconds--the equivalent of ten lengths in horse racing or 50 yds. in the mile run. In the first downhill race of the 14-week World Cup series, Henri Duvillard won by well over a second. At Berchtesgaden, Germany, Jean-Noel Augert swept the slalom by a margin of nearly 2 1/2 sec. And in the giant slalom at Val-d'Isere France, Patrick Russel nipped Augert by six-tenths of a second while trouncing Italy's lone hope, Gustavo Thoeni, by more than two seconds.

Tomorrow's Champion. The French girls are even more impressive. In the giant slalom at Oberstaufen, Germany, for example, they finished first, second, third, fourth and fifth. No matter that France's top women's slalomist, Ingrid Lafforge, has been sidelined for the season with a broken leg. Led by Michele Jacot, 19, the women's team has no fewer than 14 crack skiers who are capable of winning on any given day, including a 15-year-old sensation, Jocelyne Perillat, who is being heralded by the French press as the "super champion of tomorrow." The French team is so steeped in talent that nine women and seven men have shared the team's 20 victories. Groans one Austrian skier: "They're ants, those French. You crush one and they have a hundred right behind."

Austrian officials, fearful that the French team's success will deflate Austria's winter tourist trade, are groaning even louder. Last month, in fact, Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky called an emergency meeting in Kitzbuehel to decide how to stop the French. The only sure way is to kidnap French Ski Director Jean Beranger. Women's team coach for nine years before succeeding Honore Bonnet as head coach this season, Beranger is no stickler for style. He believes in "doing things empirically. A skier's morphology, his character, his personality should determine his style. There's only one thing that counts and that's his speed." Unlike Bonnet, who was always referred to as "Monsieur," Beranger is on a first-name basis with team members, who praise him lavishly. "He knows how to talk to teen-age girls," explains Franc,oise Macchi, 19. "He's young, and he understands our problems."

Early Start. Beranger shows no favoritism when it comes to training. The girls are put through the same rigorous program as the men. "In the old days," says former World Champion Annie Famose, 26, "training began in October. Now we start in May or June with hiking, cycling and soccer. Already by July there's glacier skiing. So by early December we're just as ready for those first races as we are for the big competitions in January."

Ready is the word. Before the season began, Beranger allowed that his hope was "to have a Frenchman and a French girl win the World Cup." As of last week, with four French skiers in the top five places in both the women's and men's divisions, his hope seemed a certainty.

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