  | | | |
| Peters Portal |
|
| Olympics |
|
|
|
|
LAST UPDATE: 03.02.02
If You Want Info Bout The Olympics Than You've Come To The Right Place
|
Team K120 |
|
|
|
UHRMANN, Michael
HOCKE, Stephan
HANNAWALD, Sven
SCHMITT, Martin
|
974.1 |
|
|
|
AHONEN, Janne
HAUTAMAEKI, Matti
JUSSILAINEN, Risto
LINDSTROEM, Veli-Matti
|
974.0 |
|
|
|
FRAS, Damjan
KRANJEC, Robert
PETERKA, Primoz
ZONTA, Peter
| |
|
|
|
Oh Boy!
HOW COOL WOULD it be to walk around with a broom? Swisshelm asked after Canada beat the Americans 9-5 in the womens bronze medal game Thursday. Youd have to be a pretty cool teen-ager to do that.
Britain played Switzerland later Thursday for the gold medal.
OK, so curling may have trouble challenging skeleton, short-track speedskating, snowboarding and freestyle skiing for the short attention spans of American teens.
It would have helped to win medals, as those sports did, but the curlers still have a growing fan base. Team members received e-mails from fraternity houses around the country after their Olympic matches were shown on cable television.
For a 30-plus athlete, its pretty cool to have fan mail from a 19-year-old, said the 33-year-old Swisshelm.
It was a huge boost for the American women to get this far. They started the round-robin tournament 2-3, then won four straight before losing to Switzerland in the semifinals.
Too bad for U.S. medal prospects that the Americans were paired against the Canadians, the defending Olympic gold medalists who were upset in the semifinals by Britain.
It was a tough match, U.S. skip Kari Erickson said. We had some opportunities to score but Canada outplayed us.
In the interview room, the Americans chuckled and cracked jokes. The Canadians, gracious as they tried to be, were very serious. In Canada, curling ranks second only to hockey.
 Olympic Contreversey Cont. I CANT REALLY ENJOY THIS, Sikharulidze said Friday. I understand that I have a gold medal and its finished already, but Im only talking about a bad situation and about judges who made bad things happen. I cant even talk to my parents about this.
Later, at a reception honoring new mens Olympic champion Alexei Yagudin and silver medalist Yevgeny Plushenko, Sikharulidze said: We just want to put an end to this scandal, to be friends with our fellow athletes and be one happy figure skating family once again.
This whole ordeal took a lot out of all of us, thats why we were glad it ended one way or the other.
This is the flip side of the IOC decision to award a gold medal to the Canadian couple whose Monday night silver medal prompted such an enormous outcry.
What happens to the winners, whose only crime was skating their best?
Sikharulidzes bitterness is not directed at Canadians Jamie Sale and David Pelletier, who received a second gold medal for the pairs figure skating event that ended in controversy.
Sikharulidze and partner Elena Berezhnaya won the free skate 5-4 to take the gold. But when a French judge admitted she was pressured to vote for the Russians, Olympic and skating officials decided to declare co-champions.
They ask people in Canada who won, but if they ask in Moscow, I will give you 2 million people who say the Russians, Sikharulidze said. They have made my life very difficult.
Sikharulidze, a two-time world champion and a silver medalist at the Nagano Games with Berezhnaya, said he has lost about 10 pounds across four sleepless nights since the scandal broke.
He is most upset with the television coverage, which he ripped as one-sided and geared to making the Russians look like villains.
The media say I stole an Olympic medal, he said. I feel we skated good enough to be Olympic champions and it is the judges who think we skated the best. Its not right, TV should show both sides.
Its too much talk and the media is making us like bad guys. We are not bad guys. We never talked to judges. I dont have enough money to buy nine judges.
Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze made it clear they have nothing against Sale and Pelletier great skaters, the Russians said. Nor would they comment on the threat dishonest judging presents for their sport.  New events have been added to the Olympic Program in time for the 2002 Salt Lake City Games.
THE MOST UNUSUAL is the sport of skeleton, which last was included in the Olympics in 1948.
2002 Winter Games
Salt Lake: The air up there
There's plenty new in 2002
Five intriguing matchups at the Games
2002 Olympic Winter Games Schedule
Olympic venues
Skeleton is like luge in that the object is to steer your sled down an icy, curved course as fast as possible. But in skeleton the athletes go down headfirst. Skeleton was invented in St. Moritz, Switzerland, and a mens event was added to the program both times the Olympic Winter Games were staged in St. Moritz in 1928 and 1948. In 2002, mens and womens events will be contested.
Bobsleigh was one of the original Olympic Winter Games sports in 1924 and has been included every time since then, with the exception of the 1960 Squaw Valley Games. In Salt Lake City, a womens bobsleigh event will be added for the first time. The U.S. team of Jean Racine and Jennifer Davidson dominated the 2000-2001 World Cup competition.
MORE NORDIC
Five events have been added to various disciplines in nordic skiing.
In nordic combined contests, the competitors jump two times from a 90-meter hill and ski 15 kilometers the next day. This event has been included in Olympic Winter Games since its inception in 1924. A team event was added in 1988. In 2002, a second nordic combined event for individuals known as the sprint will make its debut: one jump from a 120-meter hill and a 7.5-kilometer ski race.
Rules, Olympic history and more
Cross-country pursuits have been contested by men and women since 1992. In 2002, these contests will be changed from two-day races to one-day events and the length of the second courses will be shorter. In another move to make the sport and Olympic Winter Games more exciting, the mens 30-kilometer race and the womens 15-kilometer race will begin with a mass start, and the first skier across the finish line will be declared the winner.
Won Hye-Kyung of South Korea wins the gold medal in the short track speed skating at the 1998 Olympic Winter Games in Nagano.
Also, cross-country skiing will include 1500-meter sprint races for men and women.
Short track speed skating made its Olympic debut in 1992 and already has proven so popular that an extra event has been added for both men and women. In addition to the 500 meters, 1000 meters and relay, short track skaters in 2002 also will compete at 1500 meters.
In snowboarding, the giant slalom event also will see a change of format. In 1998, the contestants competed one at a time against the clock. In 2002, this event will be replaced by the parallel giant slalom, in which two snowboarders at a time race against each other in a single-elimination tournament.
 |
|
|
| |
|
The air up there
Salt Lakes altitude has some athletes on high alert
By Steve Nelson
STAFF WRITER
Anyone whos gone from their home down in the valley to a vacation trip in the mountains has felt the effects of altitude. Some can be pleasant, like driving a golf ball farther in the thin air, and some not so nice, like stopping a morning jog sooner than expected because you cant catch your breath, your lungs are burning and your legs feel like dead weight.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE ATHLETES AT the Salt Lake Games wont be there for a vacation, but they could be packing their bags and going home empty-handed if they havent prepared for the elevation.
2002 Winter Games
Salt Lake: The air up there
There's plenty new in 2002
Five intriguing matchups at the Games
2002 Olympic Winter Games Schedule
Olympic venues
Its going to have a huge effect, Dr. Jim Stray-Gundersen of the Norwegian Olympic Team says of the thin air.
Athletes who perform well at sea level wont necessarily perform well here if they havent prepared for the altitude.
The higher the altitude, the less oxygen there is in the air, meaning less fuel transported to the muscles by red blood cells. By acclimating to the Rocky Mountain altitude in advance Stray-Gundersen and altitude training expert Dr. Benjamin Levine recommend a minimum of four weeks athletes can increase their red blood cell production and breathing rate.
LIVE HIGH, TRAIN LOW
Stray-Gundersen, an American whose live high, train low studies on altitude training with Levine have been funded by the United States Olympic Committee, was hired by Norway specifically to prepare the team for Salt Lake.
Levine is the director of the Institute for Exercise and Environmental Medicine for Presbyterian Hospital and an associate professor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.
The premise behind the live high, train low approach is that by living at high elevation and training at or closer to sea level, athletes receive the benefits of altitude acclimation while still being able conduct workouts with maximum effort.
Its safe to say the Norwegians will be ready for the altitude. They relocated to Park City, Utah (base elevation 2,048 meters/6,720 feet), months before the Games to get used to the conditions.
Park City will host alpines giant slalom and snowboarding events at the Games. Soldier Hollow, the venue for cross-country skiing, biathlon and nordic combined, is located in nearby Heber City.
THE 100-SECOND RULE
Stray-Gundersen uses a 100-second rule as a guide for when altitude begins to affect an athlete in competition.
Cross-country, biathlon and nordic combined will be the events most affected because they all last longer than 100 seconds and are at one of the highest venues.
DR. JIM STRAY-GUNDERSEN
Norwegian Olympic Team Cross-country, biathlon and nordic combined will be the events most affected because they all last longer than 100 seconds and are at one of the highest venues, he says.
But sports such as ice hockey, figure skating and, yes, even curling will be impacted to some degree.
Altitude will definitely have an effect, but its not as important as in a sport like cross-country, says Peter Lindholm, skip of Swedens Olympic Mens Curling Team. We went to Ogden (host to the Olympic curling venue) in March, and just going for a walk was a lot different than here in Sweden.
FAST TRACK FOR SPEED SKATING
But while several athletes are fretting over the altitude, speed skaters have to be licking their chops. Salt Lake Citys Utah Olympic Oval sits at 1,425 meters (4,675 feet). Higher elevation is actually a benefit in speed skating because the skaters face less resistance and the ice is denser because less air is trapped in it. Hard ice equals fast ice.
That certainly was the case at the 2001 World Single Distance Championships, where five world records and a bevy of national records were set at the Olympic venue, from the sprints all the way up to 10,000 meters.
I dont think the altitude adversely affects the athletes performance in the longer distances, as most people think, said Nick Thometz, sport manager for speed skating at the 2002 Games. Obviously at altitude there is less oxygen in the air, which makes it more difficult to breathe, but there is also less air resistance, which allows the skaters to cut through the air easier.
The (Utah Olympic) Oval is the highest enclosed oval in the world, but it only sits at 4,675 feet (1,424 meters), which is not that high. Most people consider high altitude being above 7,000 feet (2,000 meters), which would definitely affect the athletes more. Id be surprised if the world records for the longer distances were not broken at the Olympic Games.
NAGANO VS. SALT LAKE
The altitude change from the 1998 Nagano Games to Salt Lake will be quite dramatic at some venues. For example, the biathlon course was at 620 meters (2,034 feet) in 1998, as compared with a high point of 1,793 meters (5,882.5 feet) at Solider Hollow, just under the course maximum of 1,800 meters (5,905.5 feet) stipulated by the International Biathlon Union.
I think maybe it will be a problem for some, says top Norwegian womens biathlete Liv Grete Skjelbreid Poiree.
Personally, I have had good experiences at high altitude. I train at high altitude and as a team we spend a lot of time in the mountains.
But Skjelbreid Poirees top rival, 2000-2001 World Cup champion Magdalena Forsberg, didnt sound quite so confident.
I hope I can manage it, says Forsberg, who lives at sea level in Sweden.
I had a tough time at Soldier Hollow during the test event (in March 2001). I came to Soldier Hollow just four to five days early. It was not enough. I won, but I had a really difficult time. For the Olympics, we are going over in early January to get used to the altitude.
U.S. figure skater Timothy Goebel says concerns about altitude at the Salt Lake Games are overblown, adding "real champions don't make excuses."
Fellow Swede Per Elofsson, a medal favorite in cross-country, passed out while competing at the 1997 World Junior Championships in Canmore, Canada, at an elevation of 1,309 meters (4,296 feet).
The altitude is a concern, says Elofsson, who chose not to compete in an Olympic test event at Soldier Hollow.
I think I learned my lesson (at the 1997 event). We will be going in four weeks early to train. I will be ready.
NO EXCUSES
But whether the altitude helps or hurts, its still up to the teams and athletes to come in prepared and to perform. As U.S. figure skater Timothy Goebel says, theres no crying in the Olympics.
Everyone builds up the altitude to be this big deal, he says. I think that if youre well-trained and youre mentally well-prepared, then its not so much of a problem. No one at my level really makes excuses.
Real champions dont make excuses.
|
|
|
|
|
|
