Word: medal
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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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...
...margin of victory translated into a mere 10.5 in. -- about the length of a speed-skating blade; for her crying, cheering relatives in the crowd, it might as well have been a mile. Blair, 23, willowy but muscular at 5 ft. 5 in., had brought home the gold medal to the U.S. And she had recaptured her world record from Rothenburger, who had first taken it away on the same rink only two months before. But wait. That's not all. Later in the week Blair went flying around the rink again to win the bronze medal in a personal...
...many images, so many of them conflicting. America's gold-medal speed skater, Bonnie Blair, 23, was the picture of invulnerability or delicacy, depending on whether she was all packed up in her peppermint suit, streaming across the ice, or her hair was falling down afterward in curls. (It's the color of maple syrup in the morning.) "I'm just a person who likes to chase someone," she said in a voice that sounded too small for a champion of the world, 5 ft. 5 in. tall...
...when he did win, the Italian zigzagger was overtaken by something close to modesty. "I am not a beast or La Bomba today," he said. "I am just a happy man." Two days later he won a second gold medal and wept...
...example of a warm Calgarian, a grandmother named Jean Newsted, came scurrying along with a loom in one hand and a nervous-looking rabbit in the other. Just then the Soviet silver-medal ice-dancing team of Sergei Ponomarenko and Marina Klimova materialized by the happiest chance. Hastening up to them, Newsted explained through a handy interpreter that she was a weaver of Angora fur and had been so taken with Ponomarenko and Klimova's performance that two of her rabbits now bore their names. In fact, here in her arms was Benjamin Sergei. It is difficult to describe...