What they're saying

There are various theories as to why luge hasn't caught on big in the United States. My personal belief is that people here aren't big on sports that might kill them.

Lugers strap themselves onto a sled, feetfirst, then attempt to guide it down a twisting course of ice while reaching speeds of 90 mph or more while trying to look over their guts and past their feet.

Who thought this sport up?

Bob Lutz, Wichita Eagle

Never interviewed an athlete in a day spa before. But here we are at the Winter Olympics with U.S. figure skater Michael Weiss.

There's an unmistakable aroma of gel and nail polish in a spa that you just don't get in a room full of sweaty football players. Pass the blow dryer and the cosmetics. And a mirror. Don't forget the mirror.

When you're dealing with makeup, hair coloring and such, you absolutely must see your reflection.

The official Olympic motto is "faster, higher, stronger." In figure skating, the slogan is: "more gel, more skin bronzer, more moisturizer."

Gary Lundy, Knoxville News-Sentinel

Basically, you can divide the Winter Olympics into two kinds of sports: the ones you can imagine doing and the ones you can't.

In the former category are things like hockey, figure skating (if you can tell your lutz from your axel) and skiing, if you have a fondness for GoreTex.

In the latter is just about everything they do at this mountain venue near Park City.

Sunday, it was ski jumping. Monday, it was the men's luge. Still to come, more of both sports, plus the skeleton and bobsled, the only I-might-try-that-without-a- gun-to-my-head member of the group.

David Lassen, Ventura (Calif.) County Star

This is where legends are made. The greatest sport in the Winter Games. It's a one-shot deal, one quick ride to eternal Olympic glory.

The downhill is not for the weak of heart nor weak of knee. The downhill racer is a streaking bullet, a pinball on skies that approaches speeds of 90 mph.

They make movies about these guys. They celebrate them, treat them like ski gods and worship them long after the world has forgotten who won the combined. They get the gold, the girls, the myth.

Steve Dilbeck, Los Angeles Daily News

Don't blame Ziggy Palffy for causing an international incident by playing for Slovakia in Saturday's Olympic qualifying game against Germany.

(NHL commissioner Gary) Bettman had several scenarios that would have brought harmony to a league that always can use a higher profile.

Instead, his lack of direction on a sensitive issue forced players from the qualifying teams to head for Salt Lake City while their NHL teams were still in action.

It put clubs in an awkward position with some of their top players. Minnesota did not allow rising star Marian Gaborik to play at all.

It also left fans wondering if (Kings star) Palffy was concerned more with Olympic gold than a Stanley Cup. Palffy should never have been forced into that corner.

Matt McHale, Los Angeles Daily News

Well, stick that in your hash pipe and smoke it, old dudes. Oh, yeah, we don't do drugs anymore. We're athletes now.

Welcome to snowboarding in the land of the free and home of the baked. Just now, a nation has its snowboarders to thank for its only gold medals in the Salt Lake 2002 Winter Games.

And maybe that will endear those crazy kids to the oldsters -- and those crabby skiers. For a day, anyway.

Paul Oberjuerge, San Bernardino Sun

We admire summer Olympians because they do things better than we do. We admire Winter Olympians because they do things we'd never try.

Whether it be a ski jumper flying the length of two football fields or a skeleton rider trying mightily to keep his trembling face from hitting ice that is whistling at 90 mph 3 inches beneath his nose, these Olympians are often pushing themselves to the edge of insanity and beyond.

Dan Le Batard, Miami Herald

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