Bobsledding

One day after his brakemen Pavle Jovanovic was suspended from competition for two years after testing positive for the use of a banned substance, bobsled driver Todd Hays fired back at international doping officials. "I know in my heart that Pavle was guilty of nothing," said Hays, who had a good chance to win the first U.S. bobsledding medal in 46 years with Jovanovic. "My concern now is the adversity he will face for the rest of his life."

When Ildiko Strehli marches in the Opening Ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City on Feb. 8, she plans to carry in her pocket a list of friends and family members who have supported her. When the Hungarian makes her first bobsled run 11 days later, she'll push a used sled she calls the "sled full of hope" with a pink ribbon--the symbol of breast cancer survivors--painted on the side.

The U.S. Bobsled and Skeleton Federation said Sunday it will support Pavle Jovanovic's appeal of a U.S. Anti-Doping Agency drug suspension that could disqualify him from the Salt Lake City Winter Games. But it's unclear whether Jovanovic, of Toms River, N.J., and the USBSF have time to make their case. Today is the deadline for prospective Olympians' names to be submitted to the International Olympic Committee, and the Games begin Feb. 8.

Figure skating doesn't have a monopoly on soap opera scenarios. Top-ranked U.S. bobsled driver Jean Racine dumped her longtime brakeman, Jen Davidson, a week before the Olympic trials and replaced her with Gea Johnson, the former NCAA heptathlon champion who served a four-year international suspension for using anabolic steroids and posed nude for a fitness magazine.

Dominik Hasek and his Czech teammates were the darlings of the Nagano Olympics. While the U.S. and Canada sent players whose egos were as inflated as their NHL salaries, the Czechs chose a team that included nine non-NHL players. In a classic David vs. Goliath story, the Czechs withstood the best the U.S., Canada and Russia threw at them and won gold.

While most kids are dabbling in peewee basketball or youth soccer, a few hardy young daredevils who dream of Olympic gold are careening down Utah's mountains. Each weekday beginner bobsledders, lugers, ski jumpers and aerial freestyle skiers test their mettle at the Utah Winter Sports Park, a venue for the 2002 Winter Games. But these young athletes aren't worried about 2002. They're looking ahead to the 2006 games in Turin, Italy.

The cash-strapped U.S. Virgin Islands Winter Olympic team has sold two bobsleds to a Japanese firm that reportedly runs "love hotels," a newspaper reported Thursday. The Japan Times said the team sold its three bobsleds--a four-man sled and two two-man sleds--because it could not afford to ship them out of Japan and needed money to repay loans taken out to compete in the Nagano Games.

While the focus was on Brian Shimer's attempt to end the bobsled medal drought in four-man competition, Jim Herberich finished 12th in USA II. Herberich, 35 on March 8, is a Harvard graduate who works as a hydrologist with a consulting and engineering firm. He said he was leaning toward continuing his bobsled career, "But I'm not sure I want to go through this again. It's five or six months on the road every winter, and I'm getting a little old for that.