Word: luge
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...faultfinding. With six medals, America is well below the high-snow mark of twelve at both the 1932 and 1980 Lake Placid Games, but not far off the average haul of eight. Evidently, the quadrennial depression from national winter shortcomings is no more memorable than the average American luge run. Still, George vowed to slay the dragon of Olympic mediocrity: "We should go after ((excellence)) and spare no expense." So with baseball an exhibition sport this summer in Seoul, would Owner Steinbrenner donate an ace Yankee hurler during the pennant stretch for the sake of national glory? Sure...
Athletic glamour and grandeur are often in the eye of local beholders. To U.S. viewers, no amount of informative programming will make the luge, bobsled and . Nordic combined more than curiosity-shop events -- a job only American medals would do. But fans in other countries had cause to rejoice in some non-prime- time, though historic, performances. East German Frank-Peter Roetsch was the first ever to capture both the 10-km and 20-km biathlons, a daunting standard for future ski shooters. Even more notably, Soviet Cross-Country Skier Raisa Smetanina tied for the most decorated competitor...
...Engine Company 45 on East Tremont Avenue in the Bronx, athletes in Calgary's Olympic Village will be tumbling out of bed for another day of fun, games and potential glory. Muniz is no stranger to that daily ritual. As one-half of Puerto Rico's two-member luge team, the fire fighter spent pleasant evenings last week playing free video games with the boys and girls of winter and precarious days sliding down the refrigerated luge track on his back at speeds pushing 70 m.p.h. "People were looking down at me, waving and ringing cowbells," he says with wonder...
...luge and bobsled seem to attract the largest number of Olympic eccentrics, many of whom have found the open-minded governing bylaw about nationality conveniently accommodating. For New Yorker George Tucker, a physicist born in Puerto Rico, Calgary actually offered a chance to improve. At his Sarajevo debut in 1984, Tucker shed alarming amounts of skin bouncing off the wall. "I was the luger who dripped blood," Tucker says. The next ( summer he recruited Muniz, who had schemed to represent Puerto Rico as a kayaker. "Misery loves company," explains Muniz. Argentine Ruben Gonzalez, a chemist, claims yet another distinction...
...skiing maintenance worker ("like hitting a tree") and broke her leg. After a brief cry, Fletcher was smiling again. "You can't have everything, you know," she said. "Where would you put it?" No American man or woman had ever finished as high as sixth in an Olympic luge, and when Bonny Warner moved up from the eighth position on her final run, she shivered with pleasure. "It's a warm feeling," said Warner, 25, "like the sled has little feelers on it, and it can tell you're happy, so it goes fast...