Robert Pipkins

The assault was reported by an official of the U.S. Luge Association and confirmed by German police.

Robert Pipkins, 1992 junior world champion; Duncan Kennedy, and several teammates were in the bar, Kurparkklause, when the attack occurred, according to Bob Hughes, marketing director of USLA.

The Germans, all in their twenties, "told the Americans when they came in to get lost," said regional police chief Karl-Heinz Malina of Suhl, which is near Oberhof.

He said a fight ensued between the Germans and Americans, two of whom are black. He said a 26-year-old black whom he would not identify was hurt, although not seriously.

Five Germans were arrested. Malina said he believed the Americans were attacked because the Germans, all from Suhl, were "hostile to foreigners."

Pipkins, of New York, apparently was the target of the attack, Hughes said. Kennedy, of Lake Placid, N.Y., stepped in to divert the attackers and took the brunt of the punishment, according to Hughes.

"A couple of our guys were in a local tavern, having a beer," Hughes said. "A couple of skinheads came in and made a beeline for Robert, who is black."

Pipkins, a student at Drexel University in Philadelphia, pushed one of the assailants, then Kennedy stepped in while teammates hustled Pipkins out a back door.

Germany has been the scene of attacks by young thugs on blacks and other racial and ethnic minorities. ...

Franck Piccard recorded a string of firsts in Solden, Austria, winning the World Cup Alpine skiing opener, a men's giant slalom on the Rettenbach glacier at 3,000 meters above sea level.

Piccard, with three previous World Cup victories between 1988 and 1990, earned his first giant slalom triumph in the first race of the season to become the first Frenchman to win a giant slalom since Henry Duvillard in 1973.