HUBBARD WINS US ALP9INE TITLE

HUBBARD WINS US ALPINE TITLE

By Ray Bastarache, Salem MA, Daily News

Just when you started to fully digest the magnitude of Jeff Keith’s dramatic cross-country run after losing a leg to cancer, along comes the story of Brian Hubbard, a 38 year old blind skier from Lynn (MA) now living in Newport, RI, to provide another helping of motivation for handicapped athletes around the world.

Hubbard, a former Lynn English hockey player who suffers from a degenerative disease called retinitis pigmentosa, which allows him five degrees of vision and no night vision, captured the gold medal in the downhill at the US Alpine Ski Competition for the Visually Impaired at Spirit Mountain, Duluth, Minn., and thereby qualified him for the US OlympicsHandicap Ski Team that will compete at the ’88 Winter Olympic Games in Calgary, Alberta.

In ’84, Hubbard was a bronze medalist at the National Championships at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and took a gold in the giant slalom at the Northeast regionals in Windham Mountain, New York. But he never expected to take top honors at the Minnesota Championships.

"I had a disappointing run the day before in the giant slalom," admitted Hubbard, who was the only blind ski instructor in the United States and has been skiing competitively for three years. "I hit the gate at the bottom of the run and was disqualified. The downhill was coming up the next day, and there were over one hundred competitors registered. Even though I felt the downhill was my best event, I was still quite pessimistic."

On the night before the race, Hubbard, a licensed psychologist, met up with race favorite Pat McLuen, a former All-American wrestler from Iowa who also suffers from RP and, like Hubbard, has five degrees of vision. FMcLuen had won the GS that afternoon and was boasting to his friends how he would double on the downhill.

"I decided I had heard enough," recalls Hubbard, "so I went up to him and bet that I would beat him. He promptly accepted my challenge."

At the suggestion of his guide (Hubbard has to follow the shadowof a trained ski guide) Paul Naschak of Winter Park, Colorado, Hubbard gave his skis an intensive wax job followed by a coat of Ivory soap.

"Paul said the soap couldn’t have a deodorant in it," Hubbard explained. "It would be too sticky."

"He also figured we’d be better off walking to the starting gate rather than taking the chair," Hubbard added, "because we’d lose the soap."

Brian’s first run was his best as he clocked a 1:07.5.

"It felt fast to me," he said, "but I wasn’t sure it was going to be fast enough. In fact, I told Paul that it didn’t really matter to me at that point where I finished because I had done my best and had a good run. However, I saw from the look in Paul’s face ("he doesn’t get excited very often" said Hubbard) that something good had happened. People were running over to us, and although I couldn’t see all of them, I heard words like ‘Wow!’ and ‘What a run!’"

Hubbard’s time was twenty seconds faster than the rest of the field, but it wasn’t until the last skier crossed the line with a time of 1:21 that Hubbard celbrated.

"It was incredible." He said. "Even Pat came over, and we embraced. I told him we were now teammates (gold medal winners are automatic selections for the US Disabled Alpine Team), and it felt great to say that to someone I really can identify with."