Word: ortlieb
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...people in the little man's Games, Teruel is as much a fan as a participant, enjoying a front-seat view of the lions of a sport he took up 20 years ago. One day, he says happily, he found himself at breakfast next to downhill champion Patrick Ortlieb. Downhill combined winner Josef Polig shared an elevator with him the day before the Italian won his gold. Teruel dreams of meeting Jean-Claude Killy or even just wearing clothes from the "Killy Sport" store in Val d'Isere...
...sport, or every life that knows a slip, a birth, a marriage, but in the Olympics an athlete comes into the spotlight for a second and then, in most cases, disappears into oblivion for four years. The first question asked of the first male gold medalist, Austrian downhiller Patrick Ortlieb, was whether he had thought, during his run, of his teammate Gernot Reinstadler, who died in a race last year. He couldn't, the affable big man said simply, he couldn't afford to think of accidents or of anything but the course. One moment of sentiment could mean...
Time plays strange tricks in the Winter Games. Ortlieb was the first one down the hill, whooshing through the course in 1:50:37; then, like the rest of us, he could do nothing but watch the scoreboard, as 55 other skiers, one by one, tried to eclipse his time. He had competed only against himself; the others were up against the clock. Athletes at their greatest can attain almost meditative states -- the so-called zone -- in which time slows down or seems suspended. We, however, bring them back to earth with our deadlines. Hardly had the majestic figure-skating...
When Eiderbard finished, the race appeared to be over until a spectator noticed another horse, Ortlieb, standing beside the 16th fence where he had fallen. The spectator suggested to his Negro jockey, I. Wren that he mount Ortlieb, hurry in to win the $100 third prize. I. Wren tried five times to make Ortlieb jump the last fence, finally got him to "creep" over it by walking him up to the jump and shouting "giddap." He then rode in, ten minutes behind Eiderbard, while the crowd cheered and the band played "The Jolly Blacksmith." The judges decreed that the time...
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