Word: skeletonized
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Ohno, a 19-year-old Japanese American who just may be the coolest teen on the planet, is an avatar of the new breed of Winter Olympian. Jim Shea Jr. is the ultimate throwback, and his triumph in the age-old but just reintroduced sport of skeleton was a fairy tale to top all others, except possibly Kostelic's. Riding with Shea inside his helmet was a photograph of his grandfather, a former speed-skater who had been America's oldest living Winter Olympics champion until his death in a car crash just before the Games. The Sheas are legends...
Grrrrraaaack! A horrible grinding sound came from the woods. I turned and saw an asylum escapee hurtling down an icy chute, face first, on what appeared to be a cafeteria tray. He was, in fact, a member of the village "toboggan" club, out for a ride on his "skeleton" sled. Three quick thoughts emerged: it's a bit early in the day for that, he's loonier than a luger, and we'll not see skeleton in the Olympics anytime soon...
Well, it's a new millennium, and no doubt feeling heat from the X-Games generation, the International Olympic Committee has indeed invited the world's best skeleton riders. With a third ya-gotta-be-nuts sliding sport (along with bobsled and luge) now on the schedule, the slate of what Americans consider the Peripherals--nonmarquee sports that zoom into the sporting Zeitgeist every fourth year only to melt away in the post-Games thaw--is at an all-time high. At Salt Lake we'll have all kinds of sleds, cross-country races (some with guns!), ski jumps...
...Take skeleton. It was a Mr. Cornish who decided to take the St. Moritz track headfirst during the 1887 tobogganing Grand National. So not only is skeleton not new, it is downright hallowed and has been in the Olympics before, most recently...
...other athletes selected for the honor guard were Kristina Sabasteanski, a biathlete who serves in the military; skeleton racer Lea Ann Parsley, a firefighter in Ohio; curler Stacy Liapis; luger Mark Grimmette; speedskater Derek Parra; and freestyle skier Chris Klug, who is back in the games after a liver transplant...