Gouging a sport in Salt Lake

Compiled from Times wires
© St. Petersburg Times
published February 19, 2002

SALT LAKE CITY -- Parking lots have increased daily rates fourfold, to $20. A Snickers candy bar costs $3.50. Hotel rooms that normally rent for $79 a night are $300 to $400. How about a banana for $1.50?

In some quarters of downtown Salt Lake City, price gouging has become an Olympic sport.

Scalpers were recently selling tickets to a Medals Plaza ceremony featuring the Dave Matthews Band for $60. A local supermarket chain had first distributed them free. The daily rent for a full-size car from Hertz is $110, up from about $40. A Japanese restaurant downtown is selling sushi for as much as $7.75 apiece.

Sisters Susanne and Heather McDonald of Moose, Wyo., said a friend was having sushi at a restaurant in Park City, where skiing events are held, and the waiter was adding $3 for every side dish until the man identified himself as a resident.

"Then he got them for free," Susanne said.

Persistent reports of inflated prices are threatening to undermine Utah's goal of using the Games to raise the state's profile as a vacation destination.

DUPED BY DOPE?: An athlete from Belarus abruptly left after a drug test found steroid levels more than 300 times the legal limit in his system, and his national committee was punished for helping him get away.

Because of an apparently inadvertent error in handling the urine sample Sunday night, the unidentified athlete was not considered to have flunked a drug test, the International Olympic Committee said.

But when the athlete failed to show up for a retest on Monday, the IOC investigated and found he had checked out of the Olympic Village after asking his team leader "about leaving the games," IOC director general Francois Carrard said.

NCAA SAYS NO WAY: The NCAA will not allow freestyle skier Jeremy Bloom to accept skiing-related endorsements if he chooses to play football at Colorado.

Bloom put off football last season so he could compete in the Olympics. He finished ninth in the moguls competition.

He petitioned the NCAA to allow him to receive money from ski endorsements while he played football. He argued that since freestyle skiing wasn't an NCAA sport, there wasn't a conflict.

NCAA rules prohibit a player from endorsing any products based on their "athletics ability."

The NCAA denied his petition Friday. Bloom now must decide if he wants to play football and give up the endorsements, or stay in skiing and keep them.

JAMAICA JAMS: Give the Jamaican bobsledders a German machine, and they'll win Olympic medals. At least that's what the team would have you believe.

The Jamaicans have been crowd-pleasers since their four-man team debuted at Calgary in 1988. The team was so dreadful its members became celebrities and inspired the movie Cool Runnings.

Sunday, Winston Alexander Watt and Lascelles Oneil Brown had the fastest push-off time of 4.78 seconds in the two-man competition and, for a few moments, were the world's quickest team.

"We're leaving here with a track record that's going to be

[AP photo] Winston Alexander Watt, front, and Lascelles Oneil Brown of Jamaica compete during the two-man bobsled on Saturday.

unbreakable," said Watt, a three-time Olympian.

He and Brown lost time on the ice and finished 28th, almost 5 seconds behind the winning German duo.

INLINERS IN COMMAND: U.S. speedskating has enjoyed real star power over the years as the exploits of Eric Heiden, Bonnie Blair and Dan Jansen became legends. But no team may end up as successful as the 2002 squad.

With four events remaining, starting with today's men's 1,500 meters at Utah Olympic Oval in Kearns, the United States has an excellent chance at breaking the mark for most medals won at a single Olympics.

The team has six, already equaling its top medal haul set in 1976 at Innsbruck, Austria.

Credit an influx of former inline skaters for the success. Of the six medals, three have been won by skaters who made the transition from wheels to blades.

2002 Olympics: Today's coverage

On The Wire