Olympic Games 2002

To the thunderous explosion of a massive fireworks display that dappled the colors of the rainbow on the snow-capped mountains of the Wasatch Range, the XIXth Olympic Winter Games drew to a close Sunday night, an Olympics notable for judging controversies and doping cases as much as a can-do American spirit. Controversy, in fact, dogged the Games right up until the end.

After nine years on the news staff at this newspaper, it was my good fortune in late 1998 to transfer to the Sports section. Days later, the Salt Lake bid scandal erupted. So I've been coming to Salt Lake with regularity for more than three years now, and I knew that these Games--the last in the United States for at least 10 years--would be memorable. I must admit that, after all the time spent in Salt Lake, the place kind of grows on you. Not enough to move here; let's not be ridiculous.

My stay in Salt Lake City began in failure the day I arrived. I had always said that one of my professional goals was never to go to a Winter Olympics, and here I was. I always favored Summer Games because of the word "summer" in the title. This time, the Olympic people had done me in by putting all that sliding and skating and sloshing and slushing one time zone away, so professional goals gave way to professional common sense. And now that it is over, it wasn't so bad.

While waiting for duplicate gold medals to be minted for the 1972 U.S. basketball team (victimized by non-objective timekeepers in Munich) and the 1980 Soviet hockey team (victimized by non-objective American hockey players in Lake Placid), we raise a crumpled McFlurry cup filled with 3.

I'm not sure if I would have found the stamina to make it to Sunday's gold-medal hockey game if it weren't for one more jolt from the Brazilian Olympians. They provide more energy than a six-pack of Red Bull. It was the next-to-last night of the Olympics. Three weeks on the road, three weeks of emptying my pockets and walking through metal detectors, three weeks of the same concession-stand rotation of chicken fingers, pizza and barbecue sandwiches, three weeks of lending Bill Plaschke money and three weeks of late nights running into early mornings had wiped me out. I was at Natalie's, a restaurant and bar co-owned by Natalie Williams of the WNBA's Utah Starzz, and my unofficial evening hangout.

As executive director of Canada's Olympic hockey team, Wayne Gretzky got all of the headaches and little of the glory. In a country full of hockey experts, Gretzky made himself a magnet for criticism when he accepted the job 15 months ago. No matter whom he and his staff picked for the 23-man roster or how they justified their selections, they had to return from the Salt Lake City Winter Games with Canada's first men's hockey gold medal since 1952 or they would be considered abject failures.

Do you believe in miracles!? Now I do. The U.S. men's Nordic ski team didn't win a medal, but it came closer than it has in 26 years with a fourth place in the team combined, a fifth in the cross-country relay and a fifth in the individual combined sprint by Todd Lodwick. The men predict a medal in four years. The women predict one in eight years. Al Michaels is on call. Other highs and lows from the Winter Olympics: Baron Pierre de Coubertin spins in his grave once more before the closing ceremony: Nina Kemppel, the four-time U.S. Olympian whose best finish was her 15th in Sunday's 30k cross-country ski race, tried hard to think of how many elite skiers in her sport aren't on drugs.

In a surreal combination of circumstances Sunday, Russian Larissa Lazutina accepted congratulations for winning the gold medal in the women's 30k cross-country ski race at Soldier Hollow, while 60 miles away the International Olympic Committee was voting to strip her of the medal for a blood doping violation.

I wish I could say I'll remember the good things I saw at the Winter Games, because there were many performances and people worth remembering. The power and command of Alexei Yagudin's free skate in winning the men's figure skating gold medal. The radiant joy of Sarah Hughes' gold-medal free skate. The teary eyes of Michelle Kwan as she watched someone else ascend to the top of the medals stand and receive the gold medal she was favored to win, a Nagano nightmare relived.

Add one more goose bump to the story of gold medalist Jim Shea, already among the most heartwarming and inspiring of these Olympic Games. Shea is the Lake Placid, N.Y., slider who won the gold medal in skeleton Wednesday, carrying a funeral card of his grandfather in his helmet as he sped down the course.