Phil and Steve Mahre dominated the sport of skiing in the USA in the late '70s into the mid-'80s. While Phil, older than Steve by four minutes, won the gold that day in Sarajevo, his brother, and best friend, stood just inches lower with the silver medal around his neck. Adding to this already stellar moment in the history of the Mahres was the fact that, on the way to the award's ceremony, Phil got the news of the birth of his first child, a son.

"It was on my way from the Olympic Village to the award's ceremony that I was told my wife had given birth and it became a pretty emotional day for me," Mahre recalls. [Click here for transcript and audio.]

Prior to those games, after which Phil "hung up" his skis for a long time, he had been sort of nonchalant about his victories. "A lot of people ask me what it's like to win and, in the finish area, it's no different than any other race that I competed in, I didn't feel. You set out to win, and when you win you say 'that's what I came here for, I didn't come here to lose.' But, it wasn't like 'Oh God, this is the greatest moment of my life.'"

But on the day in '84, all that was happening: his new son, the raising of the American flag to its highest spot, the echo of the national anthem, caused a sort of epiphany for Phil — for the first time he really looked back on his career as more than just a bunch of races. "When I was on the award's stand and received my medal, that's when it really shined a whole different light on what had taken place over the last 10 years of my career," he said. [Click here for transcript and audio.]

What had taken place over the 27 years prior to those Games was that a Washington boy and his twin brother, from a family of nine kids, became the poster boys for a whole generation and probably single (double) handedly breathed new life into skiing in America.

Born May 10, 1957, Phil Mahre started skiing at White Pass (Washington) as a small boy, and in 1973, at 15, was named to the U.S . Ski Team. Caught in an avalanche that same year, Phil broke his leg and missed the '74 season. [Click here for transcript and audio.] He then broke it again nine months later in a fall from a playground slide, missing most of the '75 season. Late in '75, back in his first race, he managed to win the US Ski National Giant Slalom Title (which he went on to win twice, along with five national Slalom Titles.)

But it wasn't really until 1976, the bicentennial, that it all began to pay off for the hard driven athlete. He was18-years-old and headed across the ocean to '76 Olympic Games in Innsbruck, Austria (he placed 5th in the Giant Slalom). Phil Mahre almost lost to the game in 1979 when he broke his left ankle in a Lake Placid competition. With seven screws and a two inch plate, it was feared his career was over. "Had it happened five or 10 years earlier they would have fused it and said 'you're done,'" he said.

But, done he wasn't. One year later, Mahre saw Olympic glory not once but twice, winning the gold in the alpine combined and silver in slalom. But, he seems most proud of what was to happen over the first three years of the new decade, when in 1981, 1982, and 1983, Phil Mahre won three consecutive Overall World Cup Titles.

"There're very few two times winners let alone three times winners. I was only the third person to ever do that and I think there are only two people who have won more than I have and that's Marc Ghiradelli and Pirmin Zubriggen. I'm by far the best American ski racer this country has ever produced and the second best would be my brother," he said. [Click here for transcript and audio.] And those were the days of ski greats Ingemar Stenmark of Sweden, Peter Mueller of Switzerland and Franz Klammer of Austria. The kid was on a roll.

And this, all before the infamous '84 Olympics with the American twins in the spotlight. The Mahres were seen as underdogs going into those games and certainly not picked to show, let alone win. "I think it was the USA Today the morning of the slalom and they made the statement that he was a dark horse and I was a horse of a darker color," Phil recalls. [Click here for transcript and audio.]

This statement "lit a fire" under Steve and while Phil had, to this point, won more, that day it could have gone either way. "I mean my brother beat me so severely the first run I had pretty much resigned myself to a silver medal," he said. But, through thick and thin, the brothers work together and being neck and neck in a race as big as the Olympics was no different. [Click here for transcript and audio.] Phil and Steve, when each finished their first run, communicated via radio about the course. People, Mahre said, thought it was "asinine... here's a guy, he's winning an Olympic medal, in the finish area, and he's telling his brother how to beat him."

But, his brother didn't beat him. Phil said he became focused sooner in their lives than Steve. "I believed in myself much earlier than (Steve) did. After '76, that was our dream and we both accomplished that and he basically retired and I said 'I could be great at this, I can be the best in the world' and it took him a lot longer to come to grips with that. Because of that, I think I always had the upper hand," he said.

Phil retired in 1985 but retains the title of America's best skier as no one has yet to duplicate or better his record. "Until someone does better than you you'll always be the top dog," he said. And he doesn't see anyone coming down the slope that might be able to take his title. "We have our Tommy Moes and stuff, we have our speed event skiers, but we have absolutely nobody in the special events," he said. If he had the answers, he said, things would be different but, all he knows is "it's easy to get to the top than it is to stay on top. It didn't seem that difficult to be top dog, but I think too often our kids get lost in thinking they've arrived when they haven't. They get a little success and it's 'oh God, I'm great.'"

When asked if he missed those days of skiing great, Phil said "I don't miss the competition, and I'm a competitor." [Click here for transcript and audio.] He never even realized how stressful his racing life was until he was two years off the slopes and he went to watch a World Cup event in Aspen. "I was in cold sweats watching these guys ski. You start to realize 'God, I used to ski with these guys, I used to beat these guys' and that's when you realize how much pressure must have been involved." Having always thought of himself as "casual," his wife says he became a different person when he retired.

Phil Mahre is very busy on promotional tours, which are heavy in Olympic years and he and his brother teach at The Mahre Training Center. "I love to ski, I have a lot of fun and I have a lot of fun teaching people, especially when the light bulb goes on. You touch on a point and something clicks for them and they get enthralled again." He's also back on his boards skiing in what he calls "the old man's tour" and "having fun" racing against his old rivals like Klammer, and Permin Zurbriggen which he said "I think I'll always be involved with the sport one way or the other, that's where I made my name and that's where I'll make my living," he said. [Click here for transcript and audio.]

As for this year's Olympics, Mahre's got his eye on the young Austrians and would never count out Italian superstar Alberto Tomba. "Tomba's going to come back and ski again, he'll rededicate himself. He's a big event skier," Mahre said. Today's superstars, he said, are older than the kids who used to dominate the sport. It's that they have persevered. Because, Mahre said, "guys are staying around longer, 85% of the sport is mental and if you have the ability to keep that in perspective, you'll be great for years to come." [Click here for transcript and audio.]

Speaking of the "flamboyant" Tomba, Mahre met him for the first time last spring at a Legends race in Japan and gained some personal insight into the "package" that is Alberto Tomba. "He's really a quiet, nonchalant guy, but he turns on the charm and all that stuff, because he said 'if I didn't do this I wouldn't be Alberto,'" he said. [Click here for transcript and audio.]

So Phil Mahre still gets animated when he talks about skiing. When he mentioned his "new passion in life" is motor sports, it led to the question of whether he was some kind of speed freak, a charge he denies. Once able to ski in excess of 85mph, he now has the luxury of the safety of steel and now gets his thrills at 180mph. "I feel actually safer in a race car than I do on skis," he said. Denying he's a speed freak, Phil is working on getting sponsors for his car and, of course, has a racing buddy, brother Steve. [Click here for transcript and audio.]

As for looking back on those Olympic glory days, Phil Mahre says he will always "cherish" that time, but if we can relate, all things must pass. "That's the thing with the Olympic Games: it's one day; it's a minute-and-a-half, and if everything's right, you win, and if it isn't, you don't. It's not what life is all about." [Click here for transcript and audio.]

— Sarah Love, Mountain Zone Staff