Three Harvard Skiers Almost Trapped in Chile

Three members of the Harvard-Radcliffe ski team spent the summer skiing against international competition in Argentina and Chile--and barely caught one of the last planes from Chile before the military junta overthrew the government of the late Salvador Allende last month and prevented foreigners from entering or leaving the country.

"We left just before the coup, but the five days we spent in Santiago were filled with excitement. There was rioting and shooting all week and you literally had to walk around with a handkerchief over your face because of the tear gas," Peter Carter, coach of the team and a student at the Law School, said yesterday.

Carter said the team members tried to get a flight back to the United States on September 5, but were not allowed to leave because of difficulties with their passport papers. They left two days later when their papers were straightened out.

"We were lucky that the races ended early, because we were originally scheduled to leave on the seventh. If we had been delayed then we might still be in Chile," Carter said.

The military junta just began to allow foreigners trapped in Chile by the September 11 coup to leave the country on Sunday.

Carter said he was walking down a street in Santiago one day and police appeared on both sides of him and began to bombard a building where a sniper was hiding.

"Some guy came up and threw me under a fruit stand, so I stayed there for about half an hour and spectated," he said.

Although Carter does not know the new military government's attitude toward international skiing in Chile, he said that Salvador Allende's government had been financing a program to get 8,500 young Chileans off the streets of the city and on to the ski slopes.

He said that Allende went to school with the head of the Chile ski federation and had personally supported the extensive effort to buy equipment for the children.

Although the whole ski team went to the summer season in South America in 1972, only Bryn Evensen '74 and Martha Malkin '76 could afford to accompany Carter this summer. The other members of the team worked this summer to save enough money to go next year.

In addition to the two Harvard students, Carter took skiers from several other New England schools to compete in the international field.

The South American summer circuit usually draws many of the top skiers in the world and this year five of the skiers were classified as "zero skiers." A zero skier must have won at least two World Cup competitions, a feat which has been accomplished by less than ten skiers currently in world amateur competition.

Carter skied well in the six Argentinean races, but crashed in a downhill race in Chile and tore ligaments in both knees. He captured first place in the Argentinean Air de France slalom, and racked up two second-place finishes and a third before his accident.

"Bryn [Evensen] was very consistent--he wasn't right at the top, but he didn't crash much," Carter said. Evensen beat World Cup skier Roland Thoeni of Italy in the Kandahar of the Andes downhill race. Thoeni's cousin, Gustavo Thoeni, was the World Cup ski champion last year.

Carter said Malkin went to the South American races mainly for training.PETER CARTER