Olympic notebook

Compiled from Times wires
© St. Petersburg Times
published February 16, 2002

Company mobilizes to make extra medal

SALT LAKE CITY -- The Utah company that handcrafted medals didn't have an extra set for the Canadian figure skaters and had to scramble to produce them.

O.C. Tanner had made duplicate medals for dual winners in timed sports, "but there's typically no ties in pairs figure skating," spokesman Adrian Gostick said. "Nobody anticipated this."

The company got a call Friday from Olympic organizers to produce gold medals for David Pelletier and Jamie Sale, who will share top honors with Russia's Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze.

Each medal, distinct to its sport, requires 20 hours of handcrafting. O.C. Tanner had extra medal blanks for figure skating, saving it more than 12 hours of labor.

The company called in a skilled milling operator, who was on vacation, to produce the medals.

Mitt Romney, the chief organizer of the Games, picked up the medals in an armored truck Friday night and delivered them to a safe until the International Skating Union decides to award them.

O.C. Tanner actually needed only one gold medal. It already had one for figure skating displayed in the company's lobby.

FATTER IS BETTER: Dan Steele loves to joke about how to tell him apart from his identical twin brother, Darrin.

"I'm balder," Dan said. "He's fatter."

Being fatter worked to Darrin's advantage 10 weeks ago when bobsledder Brian Shimer called him at his home in Walnut Creek, Calif. Shimer wanted to make his fifth Olympics, and he needed a brakeman before the trials.

Steele had not competed in almost four years, but he was Shimer's best option. And so an unlikely partnership began.

The first two heats of the two-man event are today. The event concludes Sunday with two more heats.

TRYING TO RELAX: In the days leading to today's super giant slalom, Daron Rahlves just wanted to get away.

After Rahlves, America's top downhiller, finished 16th in the downhill, he wanted to prepare for the Super-G the best way he knew how.

"I wish I had a snowmobile or a dirt bike right now," said the skier from Truckee, Calif. "I really need to relax and keep my mind off things."

LESS PRESSURE: Casey FitzRandolph has the hard part out of the way.

He already is the world's fastest man on ice, winning the gold in the 500 meters. So when FitzRandolph laces up his skates for today's 1,000, he'll race for his second medal with less pressure.

"It's a different ballgame when you don't have the nerves and you can go out there and go for broke and be relaxed about it," he said.

MORE PRESSURE: The 1,000-meter speed skating also represents a second, and final chance for Canadian Jeremy Wotherspoon. In the 500, the favorite, who won silver in Nagano, took four strides before falling.

Wotherspoon owns the world record of 1:07.72, set at the Utah Olympic Oval in December.

CABINET VISIT: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld plans to visit the Games on Monday then meet with troops in training at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., on Tuesday.

More than 4,000 active duty and reserve troops are at the Olympics to help federal, state and local authorities provide security and respond to emergencies.

WEENIE FAMINE -- DAY 4: Hot dog relief arrived with a shipment of 60,000 dogs. Only five days in, organizers had run out of hot dogs -- all 400,000 of them.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "I like the hat. It's very comfortable. But a hat's a hat. You know? I'm not waiting in line three hours for it. It's cold outside here. I mean, come on!" -- U.S. hockey player Jeremy Roenick on the Roots Team USA berets, one of the hottest-selling items at the Games.