Word: skiing
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Biggest Choke: Japanese ski jumper Masahiko Harada, who took a lead of 55.1 points into the team final; he followed with the worst jump by any member of the top eight teams, handing the gold to the Germans...
...bunch only recently dubbed "Uncle Sam's lead-footed snowplow brigade," by Sports Illustrated magazine. Yet even U.S. ski officials seemed stunned by the team's sudden resurrection. "It's the most unbelievable thing I've seen in sports," said American coach Paul Major of Roffe-Steinrotter's win. The 26-year-old veteran's career was in a slump, and she had failed to place higher than eighth in any World Cup race since capturing a silver medal in the 1992 Albertville Olympics. As for Moe, he had not won a major downhill contest in five years...
...fans are likely to hold youthful sins against Moe. "I was not the smartest or the best student," he said of his marijuana-smoking days. "I was out having a good time, being a normal American kid." But when the ski team suspended him at 16, his father, a contractor, hauled him up to the Aleutian Islands for a summer of 16-hour workdays. "He shoveled gravel," recalled Tom Sr. "He crawled on all fours." Moe Jr. straightened out. Since then he has put in six grueling years on the World Cup circuit, racing from one mountain to another...
...Aamodt, whose ski-coach father used to blindfold him on skis to teach him the feel of the snow, he is fast succeeding the Austrian Marc Girardelli, who competes for Luxembourg, as the world's best all-around skier. Leading in World Cup points, the charismatic Norwegian skis both downhill and slalom and could well rack up more medals this week. "In Norway we used to have the attitude that you should not do something special -- or at least you should not think you are special," Aamodt said. "But now we are developing a winner's attitude...
...siege of Sarajevo began to ease last week in the snows of Pale, a former ski resort overlooking the city. Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic walked down the front steps of his headquarters in his putative capital, his shaggy hair glistening with snowflakes, to announce: "We do think the war in Sarajevo is finally over." Beside him, Russian special envoy Vitali Churkin, the catalyst for Karadzic's conversion, nodded his agreement. The Serbs, Churkin said, would withdraw their heavy weapons from the heights around Sarajevo. In return, Russia would contribute several hundred soldiers to peacekeeping forces in the area. There...