Calgary Herald from Calgary, Alberta, Canada • 8

F4 CALGARY HERALD Jan. 11,1988 No doubting Thomas is after Olympic gold DENVER (AP) On to Calgary. That's where 16 American skaters will be next month for the Winter Olympics. All of the favorites were winners at the United States figure skating championships this weekend, even if they didn't skate their best. "My main goal was to give them an amazing performance and get the judges thinking, 'She has a chance for the gold medal in the Debi Thomas said after recapturing the U.S.

women's title. Thomas was not amazing, but she clearly was the standout woman, winning all three phases of the competition. "I think I can be a lot better," she said. "I wouldn't want my best one to be here. Waggoner and Wayne and Natalie Sey-bold; and dancers Susan Wynne and Joseph Druar.

For Boitano, it was a strange week. He made history in the short program, receiving eight perfect marks out of nine. But he twice touched down on jumps in his long program yet still got a 6.0 from one judge and 16 5.9s. The victory was his fourth straight at the nationals, tying him with Charlie Tickner (1977-80) and Scott Hamilton (1981-84). "It's one of the hardest programs in the world," Boitano said.

"I think the judges appreciate what I am trying to do and what the program is about." "I want to build up for the Olympics." Thomas, the 1986 U.S. and world champion, lost both of those titles last year. But she showed fortitude and vigor at these nationals in beating defending champion Jill Trenary and Caryn Kada-vy, who is ranked third in the world behind Katarina Witt of East Germany and Thomas. "I told her these were our last nationals together," Alex McGowan, Thomas' coach, said Saturday after his student won the freestyle competition. "I said, 'I know you can do this.

Go out and be a tigress and make it the best you've ever Trenary and Kadavy also will be headed to Calgary. "When they began playing the Olym pic theme (during the awards ceremony), it was like I was in another world," Trenary said. "I'm finally going to the Olympics." Returning to the Olympics are men's champion Brian Boitano, Jill Watson, who teamed with Peter Oppegard for their third pairs' title in four years, and Scott Gregory. Despite skating with a ruptured disc, Gregory won the dance title with Suzanne Semanick. Watson skated with Burt Lancon in the 1984 Olympics, winding up sixth.

Gregory danced with Lisa Spitz at Sarajevo and was 10th. Boitano was fifth in the 1984 Games. The other Olympians are: Christopher Bowman and Paul Wylie in men's singles; pairs Gillian Wachsman and Todd I Jill Ferguson earned her fifth consecutive city berth to Ferguson wants Shannon Oatway, Calgary Herald the Southern Alberta playdowns with a 9-7 victory Sunday over Susan Rutherford another shot at champ Debi Thomas Lyon's roar heard By Murray Rauw (Herald staff writer) Terry Lyon has gone against the trend and made it work. The hotel owner from Monarch ended a brief retirement and came into the city for the Southern Alberta Curling Association district men's playdowns this year. And he obviously didn't find the city slickers all that tough, as he won a B-event qualifying berth Sunday night.

The clinching victory was a 7-5 decision over Paul Gowsell at the Wes-twinds. In recent years, some Calgary rinks have been criticized for heading to rural districts for playdowns, a move which is within the SACA rules. "The fact we won in Calgary feels so good," Lyon admitted afterwards. "And Gowsell is the guy who beat us in so we settled a score there as well. The other berth went to Mike Townley's foursome, which ironically was also bounced from the A-side by Gowsell.

Townley's final win was an 8-4 triumph over Gord Vejprava, but the victory he'll treasure most came earlier Sunday when he trounced Ed Lukowich7-3. It's been a season of streaks for Townley, whose rink includes Scott Risebrough, Mark Dickin and Brian Windsor. The 31-year-old golf professional at Silver Springs started the Big 10 Super League season with Five straight wins, and also played and qualified with Vejprava at the War-dair Classic cashspiel. But by Christmas his game was so bent out of shape, he demoted himself to lead. "At the mixed playdowns, I struggled so badly that I was embarrassed," said Townley.

"I came off the ice after losing three straight and told Scott I didn't think it was worthwhile for me to play in the men's playdowns." The Toronto native, who arrived in Calgary seven years ago, learned his curling at the Avon-lea Club, the home of Ed Were-nich and Paul Savage. Townley credits that duo with grooming him for this calibre of competition. The loss to Townley was Luko- wich's second in a row. He lost an A-qualifying game to Mickey Pendergast on Saturday night. Lukowich straightened things out Sunday night with a 6-3 victory over Tom Mesic.

He can still qualify by winning two more times today. But one thing is certain either Lukowich or Gowsell will be an odd man out. By losing to Lyon, Gowsell fell into the same half of the draw as Lukowich and may meet him in the final at 1 p.m. Also still in contention are Frank Bailey, Glenn Moss, Troy Wylie, George Fink and Terry Meek. Lyon, with third Dennis Shupe, second John Wainwright and lead Ron Riggall, spotted Gowsell a 3-0 lead after three ends, but tied it by the seventh.

He then stole the eighth to take the lead. No one was more tense than Shupe, whose nervous antics entertained the crowd. Whether it's the image competitive curling wants to convey remains a matter of opinion. "I don't know how other curlers really feel about it," said Lyon. "They all smile.

"Dennis is so excitable he's funny. But look how loud Gowsell was during his early years." LAST STRAWS: Roy Talbot of Red Deer has won the A in District 2. In District 1, Trent McQuarrie of Lethbridge won in A and Lome Niven of Medicine Hat and Doran Johnson of Lethbridge won berths The Southerns go Jan. 21-25 at the Glencoe Club. "The rest of them really played well today, but I was mediocre," said Ferguson, referring to the Rutherford game.

But, by the 10th end with the score tied 7-7, the whole Ferguson rink was in the groove. They made eight near-perfect shots to steal a pair and the victory. Rutherford led 7-4 as late as the seventh end. But Ferguson countered with a deuce in the eighth, then stole the ninth to set up the deciding end. Risebrough's win was her fifth-straight victory in C-event play, reminiscent of her run to the Autumn Gold cashspiel final last fall.

Her rink included third Levonne Louie, second Brenda Rogers and lead Heather Loat. To reach the final, Risebrough By Murray Rauw (Herald staff writer) The main target is still safely throwing curling rocks in Grande Prairie, well out of Jill Ferguson's range. But the Calgary skip has moved a step closer to a possible rematch with the defending Alberta women's curling champion, Karen Powell. On Sunday, Ferguson scored a come-from-behind 9-7 victory over Susan Rutherford to win the B-event at the city women's playdowns and earn a berth at the upcoming Southern playdowns. Ferguson acknowledged her ambition is a rematch with Powell at the provincial championship but, she noted, "I have to West German turns It on to capture Super-C had to steal the extra end to beat Carol Davis 7-6 in a C-semifinal game.

Lukowich and her team of Shelley Campbell-Walsh, Debbie Phillips and Isabel Hamilton recovered from a morbid Saturday when they were outscored 19-4 as they fell from A to C. On Sunday, she started by eliminating playdowns' surprise Linda Wild, 7-6, then won the heart-stopper against Turner. Turner was heavy on a last-rock draw, giving Lukowich the berth. NOTES: The Southerns will be held later this month in Taber The city senior ladies' playdowns begin today at the Winter Club. Today's draws are at 9:30 a.m.

and 1:30 p.m. Cup freestyle competition at Mont-Gabriel, Que. Rozon, who missed the first two World Cup events with a shoulder injury, scored 230.06 points with two triple twisting moves for the win. Meanwhile, Meredith Gardner of Oakville, won the women's aerials event with a score of 144.54 points. Rozon was followed by Didier Meda of France (227.31 points) and Alain Laroche of Lac Beau-port, (221.03).

Andre Oui-ment of Laval, placed fifth (212.56). "To jump as well as Jean-Marc did in his first, event of the season coming off the bench is tremendous," said Canadian coach Peter Judge of Canmore. "I'm quite pleased with how our whole team performed in aerials today." Laroche's performance boosted him to the men's combined gold with 50 points. John Witt of the United States placed second with 52 points and Eric Labou-reix of France finished third with 53 points. Chris Simboli of Ottawa took fourth spot with 54 points and Chris Hatton of Toronto was 10th with 105 points.

In the women's event, Anna Fraser of Ottawa finished second (142.71 points) and Hiroko Fujii of Japan was third (140.14). Gardner finished second in the women's combined tallies with 25 points, behind Connie Kissling of Switzerland with 16 points. Melanie Palenik of the U.S. finished third with 29 points. 5 at the Acadia Recreation Complex.

In the other final, Judy Lukowich stole the 10th end to defeat Sandy Turner 6-5. Wendy Conn's rink won the A berth Saturday. This is the fifth consecutive year Ferguson has qualified from the city and the eighth time since she graduated from the junior ranks 11 years ago. It's a dynasty, though, only at the first level. "I've only been to the provincials twice," she noted.

Ferguson put together a new rink last summer, recruiting former skip Judy Pendergast to play third. Cheryl Bernard is the second and Sue Fulkerth is the lead. Bill- Wasmeier was the fastest on sudden you've got to make another one and another one. We prefer it when you can accelerate out of a turn and carry your speed for a ways before you have to turn again." Jim Read of Calgary was 52nd in 1:32.68, while Felix Belczyk of Castlegar, B.C., was 55th in Michael Carney of Squa-mish, B.C., was 65th in Don Stevens of Rossland, B.C., was 75th in Michael Tommy of Wakefield, was 81st in 1:34.50, and Greg Grossman of Ancaster, was 82nd in 1:34.58. Both Rob Bosinger of beat all the others first." Last year, Powell pinned Ferguson's ears back in the provincials a loss that never rested easy with her.

Being runner-up was bad enough, but the two skips didn't click personally either. "No, it didn't sit well with me," admitted Ferguson. "I was disgruntled last year. "But I don't dislike Karen anymore. We met again at a cash 'spiel in Saskatoon and talked.

It's important to me not to hate her." Meanwhile, Rutherford's hard times continued a couple hours later in a C-qualifying match. Sandra Risebrough laid a four on Rutherford in the eighth end and won the playdowns' finale 9- a. West German Markus hill, Canadians have rarely done well in it. "It's hard because all during the week you're training for downhill, with training runs Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and then you get so keyed up for the race on Saturday that you drop a level on Sunday." said Brian Stemmle of Aurora, Ont, who placed 62nd in 1:33.18. "Super-G is turn after turn after turn," Boyd said.

"It's almost psychologically distracting. "You try to carry your speed through one turn and all of a VAL-D'ISERE, France (CP) -West German skier Markus Wasmeier won this season's first World Cup men's super giant slalom race Sunday, his best result since a high speed fall last February in a downhill race at Fura-no, Japan. Wasmeier covered the course in one minute 29.16 seconds, three-tenths of a second ahead of Frenchman Franck Pic-card, who was fourth in the downhill race here Saturday. Pirmin Zurbriggen of Switzerland, the defending overall World Cup champion who won the downhill race Saturday, was third in Sunday's race. Zurbrig-gen's time in the Super-G was 1:29.62.

Top Canadian on Sunday was Rob Boyd of Whistler, B.C., who was 46th in 1:32.57. "The snow was not so good, the course was breaking up because of the soft snow," said Wasmeier, the 1985 giant slalom world champion. "I had a lot of problems, but that's usually the case when I have a good race." Zurbriggen now has 131 points in the World Cup overall standings to close in on the leader, Alberto Tomba of Italy. The Italian, who won five of six slalom and giant slalom races in December, was fifth on Sunday and now has 136 points. "I skied not as well as (Saturday)," Zurbriggen said.

"This was a difficult course. "Since I started first, I often didn't know how fast exactly to take a gate before a turn." Although the Super-G is a high speed event like the down- Associated Press the slopes in Super-G race Banff and Alain Villiard of Ste-Adele, failed to complete their run. The next stop for the Canadian men's team is Saturday's downhill at Bad Kleinkircheim, Austria, a replacement site for Kitzbuehel, Austria, which does not have enough snow. In other ski news Sunday: Defending World Cup champion Jean-Marc Rozon of Sher-brooke, returned from an injury layoff to win the men's aerials event, as Canadians dominated the final day of a World Mi.