AN OPENING WITH APPEAL
We're not in Atlanta anymore, Toto-san. No more country music. No more pickup trucks. This was Japan, which could mean only one thing:
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From The Weather To Hackl To Maier To Daehlie To Picabo To Seizinger To Hasek To Granato To Lipinski, It Was. . .17 Days Of Story
WINTER OLYMPICS 1998 | NAGANO 1998
From Start to Finish at the Winter Games Through the Eyes of The Times
Sumo wrestling.
That was 516-pound Akebono leading the opening ceremony, trying to drive away the evil spirits.
(In hindsight, maybe the organizers should have had someone drive away the storm clouds. Suggestion: Flip Spiceland?)
Anyway, there were plenty of Akebono's beefy buddies also taking in the festivities, which were decidedly lower key than in past Games.
A land-mine victim carried in the torch, former figure skater Midori Ito lit the flame, the snow pixies danced, and the dove-shaped balloons were launched.
IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch asked President Clinton not to bomb Iraq . . . without mentioning President Clinton or Iraq.
But of course the big story of the day was the women's figure skaters. Tara Lipinski marched in with the rest of the United States team and had plenty of things to say to CBS, such as "Wow!" "This is great!" and "I can't believe I'm here!"
Michelle Kwan elected to talk to CBS via satellite from Lake Arrowhead. The nerve.
DOWNHILL: SNOW WAY
You can have your figure skating and your hockey and your curling, but the Olympic men's downhill is one of the greatest sports events around.
Only minutes before the race was due to be run at Hakuba, a last-minute snowstorm swept across the course, forcing a postponement.
"It is a pity to cancel the race," referee Matjaz Kranjc said, "but it is the Olympics, and the racers should have the best race possible. We will try again."
Sounds like a Kranjc call to us, but what's a little snow? They can always run it tomorrow.
With the postponement, the spotlight fell on the snowboarders, those gnarly shredders who made their Olympic debut with the giant slalom.
Canada's Ross Rebagliati came from eighth place after one run to win the gold and said he would celebrate by staying in his room with his friends.
In women's hockey, another sport making its debut, Finland defeated Sweden, 6-0, with a hat trick by Pavette Nurmi. And Herb Brooks' Frenchmen lost their qualifying-round game to Belarus, with no help from Michel L'Eruzione.
THE WINNER: THE WEATHER
It came down to this: The top story in the Los Angeles Times Olympic section was a story on curling.
Curling.
Oh, sure, it was a terrific column by Mike Downey on Mike Pelinski but. . . .
Of course, this was nothing compared to the big luge controversy, with Germany's legendary Georg Hackl under fire because of his booties.
Luge booties.
Come on, guys! Do something!
As Mike Penner wrote, "At this pace, the Nagano Games very well could be the first Olympics to be called on account of cabin fever. Nothing's happening, no one's moving."
Well, it's not exactly true that nothing was happening.
There was the usual controversy surrounding the figure skating judging, this time in the pairs competition. Americans Kyoko Ina and Jason Dungjen were scored fourth after the short program, behind a Russian pair, a German pair and another Russian pair. Goodbye, medal.
In women's hockey, the United States defeated China, 5-0, in its first Olympic game; Gianni Romme of the Netherlands won the men's 5,000 meters in speedskating; Yekaterina Dafovska of Bulgaria won the women's 15-kilometer biathlon.
Let's see Dave's mom try to top those kinds of thrills.
WIPEOUT
The headline was referring to the effort by the U.S. women's snowboarders in the giant slalom, but it could have been about the ski schedule.
They did get in two runs of the men's combined slalom, but the words avalanche advisory are not the best thing to see on the ol' electronic bulletin board.
With visibility terrible, Matt Grosjean of Aliso Viejo missed a gate on the second run of the combined slalom after getting the third-best time in the first run.
Three of four U.S. women either fell or were disqualified in the first run of the snowboard.
American Wendel Suckow was sixth in the men's luge, well behind Georg Hackl and his unbeatable booties.
Canada defeated the U.S. in curling, 4-1.
The leading American in the women's 5K cross-country skiing was Kerrin Petty, who was 51st. You have to figure Richard Petty couldn't have been much farther down the list.
Oh, good. Michelle Kwan finally arrived. When does that women's figure skating start, anyway?
A GOLD STRIKE
Eureka!
Just when it seemed that the United States was going for the goose egg, along came Big Air and Picabo.
Jonny "Big Air" Moseley became the king of the moguls with his gold medal, getting the U.S. off the schneid.
And Picabo Street, who had torn up her knee a little more than a year before, tore up the super-giant slalom course to stun the field in not her strongest event. Picabo was wearing her lucky Tiger helmet, and she earned her stripes with this one, defeating the Dorfster, Austria's Michaela Dorfmeister, by one-hundredth of a second.
(Coincidentally, that's also the average time most TNT viewers could watch a curling match before hitting the remote).
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