Word: skis
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...blur. You can hear the laughter, but the rest is too much to take in at once. Television tunnel-visions the real Olympics, the stuff that goes on in the streets. Stop for a second and two U.S. ski team members walk by. They are celebrities and they flaunt it, waving at everyone, smiling at all the women. There is music blaring from the speed skating rink. There are scalpers everywhere. You just want to know everyone here-all the athletes and athlete lovers and students...
...hour. The passengers on the bus go crazy when we pass the flame, everyone squeezing to one side, pressing his face against the icy windows. No one says a word--it is more important just to look and absorb and think. The gasping starts when we pass the ski jumps. At first they look so steep no one knows what they are. A little blue speck is descending on the taller jump. He flies. The bus is silent. Then applause...
...number of athletes were also discovering something about life's talent for surprise. Canada's Ken Read, a favorite to win the most important ski race in the world, the Olympic men's downhill, pitched himself out of the starting gate and 15 seconds into his run, felt the safety binding on his left ski let go. Read parted with the ski and the potential gold he had spent years training for. The men's downhill winner was just as unpredictable: Austria's Leonhard Stock, the 21-year-old Tyrol farmer...
...ceremonies then erupted with a swarm of released doves and helium-filled balloons, followed by the gentle flyby of two dozen immense hot-air balloons. It was fun, and the display left the crowd in an ebullient and expectant mood. As the spectators filed out, members of the American ski team were climbing onto one of the buses that had brought them from the Olympic Village. "Right on!" someone in the crowd cheered at the team. The American kids grinned back...
...Austrian ski team was considerably grimmer than the Americans, and for a good but unusual reason: it had too much talent. In fact, so strong were the Austrians that Franz Klammer did not even make the team. In 1976, Klammer's run in Innsbruck had instantly become a classic of sport-a headlong, fanatical plunge of almost mystical recklessness and desire. But the following year, Klammer's younger brother Klaus, also a racer, fell so badly that he will probably be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. After that, some critical edge of aggressiveness...