Old Reliable : Making Like George Foreman, Breen Dominates Her Sport at Advanced Age

But as a world-class athlete in a demanding snow discipline, this ballet skier two months from age 32 is a creaking relic.

She risks a month in traction during a brief exercise peppered with jumps and flips down a 20-degree slope, accompanied by blaring recorded music and a determination that has placed her at the pinnacle of her sport.

Breen, defending World Cup champion, is riding a hot streak. In seven events she is undefeated, the last victory coming in Altenmarkt, Austria, on Thursday. Remaining are three more, all in Europe, with a break next week for the World Championships in LaClusaz, France.

It is not inconceivable that this woman in her athletic dotage (the next oldest of the 12-member U.S. ballet skiing team is 26) could

sweep the table, winning gold in the World Cup, the World Championships and the Nationals, which conclude the circuit for Americans in late March at Snowbird, Utah.

Though of late she's been flushed with success, her career's genesis was infinitely more modest.

"I talked my folks into sending me to a freestyle camp at Big Bear when I was in the ninth grade," Breen said. "The next year I competed in my first event. It was at China Peak (now Sierra Summit) north of Bakersfield and I won--by default. There were no other women entered."

Roz Breen has more-vivid memories of those early, humbling days.

"She was terrible," said Ellen's mother, half of a strong parental support group that includes Jim Breen, an assistant principal at West Valley Adult School in Woodland Hills.

"She was a big joke to everybody. I just couldn't understand why she competed every week to come in last. I understand now--she was going through a learning cycle the hard way."

Of course, the joke's now on the rest of the world, and her rivals aren't laughing.

Jim Breen, who left New Mexico's high country as a young adult to escape white winters, couldn't understand it, either.

"All three of our kids played varsity sports in high school (there are two older boys), but she's the only one who went back into the snow," he said.

The slopes beckoned while Ellen Breen waited impatiently to complete her senior year at Chatsworth High, where she played girls' basketball.

"I was probably a little too short (5 feet 3) to play college ball anyway," she recalled. "People told me I could hang like Michael Jordan, but I couldn't do anything when I was up in the air. I had a shot like a brick."

Off she went to Lake Tahoe with great expectations, but a week later homesickness drove her back to her family's West Hills residence in tears. She came home again once more before finally sticking.

"My dad told me he was disappointed," she recalled. "He said if I didn't give it a chance I'd regret it the rest of my life. He said, 'I never want you to look at a hill and wonder If you could've made it.'

"I can look back and honestly say I wouldn't be doing this right now without the support of my parents. They helped me out both financially and emotionally," said Breen, who still lives at home during the off-season.

Breen is dominating after sporadic adult successes--just enough of them to keep her chasing the dream.

Then Jan Brewer Carmichael went from tormentor to mentor and Breen's career took flight.

An eight-time World Cup ballet ski champion, Carmichael retired in 1991. Her absence from the tour, along with that of Switzerland's Connie Kisling, opened the door, and Breen kicked it down. She won the gold medal at the World Championships that year and repeated in '93. The event is held every other odd-numbered year.

Carmichael, 37, the irrepressible coach of the U.S. team, has a way of dousing her answers with rhetorical questions.

"Ellen always had the ability, you understand?" she half-asks. "She just never gave herself enough credit or allowed herself to win. Ellen always thought (Kisling) and I had magic, because we already were a name.

"It would be like you playing golf against Arnold Palmer. She thought she could never reach that level.

"Most people do that. It's human nature. When you walk into a room with a group of people you start ranking yourself immediately, where you belong, you understand?"

More readily understood is what Carmichael, "the big sister I never had," has done to refine Breen's routine.

"Jan changed my music to the theme from Jurassic Park. She thought it would work better for me," Breen said.

Carmichael explained: "The music creates her as very dynamic, with the big athletic moves she does. Jailhouse Rock (her former chart) is too radical, too tomboy, too wild for her, you understand?"