The Washington Diplomat

Quest for Olympic Glory
Profile of Best International Athletes Heating Up 2002 Winter Games
by Anna Gawel

As the top international contenders for Olympic gold converge on Salt Lake City this month, the rivalries and struggles that will unfold are sure to rivet audiences worldwide. Traditionally, the Americans have not dominated the Winter Games, with staples such as Russia, Germany and Austria sweeping many of the events. But as Olympic historian and NBC commentator David Wallechinsky pointed out, with so many seasoned veterans and fresh talent at the games, the top prizes are still up for grabs. “This year I don’t see any one person as a standout,” he said. “It’s pretty spread out.”

But with the American media primarily focusing on the U.S. athletes, fans from other countries may be left wondering about their own stars. So The Washington Diplomat has put together a guide on the best of the best spanning the globe at this year’s Winter Games.

Russian Rivalry

As in past years, Women’s Figure Skating will undoubtedly be one of the most watched events of the Winter Games. This year’s competition pits American darling Michelle Kwan and her Russian archrival Irina Slutskaya against each other in what promises to be a thrilling match up. Slutskaya recently emerged as the favorite to take Olympic gold after dethroning Kwan at the Grand Prix of Figure Skating—but she is not the favorite by far.

Since 1996, the two women have stood side by side at podium after podium, jostling back and forth between the top two rankings in Women’s Figure Skating—each with their share of victories and defeats. Slutskaya, the world junior champion in 1995 and the first Russian to win the European championships, finished second to Kwan at the 1998 World Championships and a very disappointing fourth in the 1999 Russian national championships.

But more recently she has recouped, edging past Kwan in six of their last eight major meetings. In jumping ability, Slutskaya clearly reigns supreme. She became the first woman to land a triple-Lutz, triple-loop combination at the 2000 Grand Prix Final, for which she received a rare 6.0 for technical merit. But Slutskaya lacks the grace that Kwan is renowned for, and her technical prowess has been inconsistent.

She stumbled through this year’s European Figure Skating Championships in Switzerland, the last competition before the Winter Games, losing to her Russian teammate, Maria Butyrskaya. Kwan too has fallen in several major competitions, and her readiness for the games has been questioned since her sudden decision to fire her longtime coach.

Butyrskaya, the 1999 world champion, took top honors at the European championships this January. While her skating has also been unpredictable, she could surprise many and topple both Kwan and Slutskaya if things go her way. Another wildcard is American Sarah Hughes, who, by many accounts, skated a more clean and crisp program than Kwan and Slutskaya in both Skate America and Skate Canada. All four are destined to duke it out in Salt Lake in what is sure to be an epic battle, and while they have all had their missteps this season, Slutskaya is still the favorite at this point—a flawed favorite, but a favorite nonetheless.

On the men’s side, it’s Russia versus Russia. Two Russians, Alexei Yagudin and Yevgeny Plushenko, have virtually dominated men’s figure skating since the 1998 European championships. Yagudin has captured three world titles, two European titles and Olympic gold in 1998, while his adversary, Plushenko, the current world champ, has won two European crowns and three Russian national titles.
This year, Yagudin inched slightly past Plushenko by winning the Grand Prix and reclaiming the European Figure Skating title. However, both victories were less than perfect. Yagudin and Plushenko’s performances at the Grand Prix were so clos e that the judges disputed over the final decision. Meanwhile at the European championships, silver medalist Alexander Abt outperformed Yagudin technically, and Plushenko withdrew from competition because of an injury, opting to save his energies for his Olympic showdown with Yagudin.

Germany’s Luge Legacy

Germany’s Georg Hackl, by far the most prolific luge athlete of all time, is looking to make Olympic history in Salt Lake City by becoming the first winter athlete to win four consecutive gold medals in the same individual event—a feat only three other summer athletes have achieved. Hackl already holds the record as the first luge slider to win four individual Olympic medals: a silver in 1988 and golds in 1992, 1994 and 1998.

Despite the scores of accolades, Hackl has also experienced his share of setbacks. A crash at the 1999 World Championships kept him off the podium for the first time since 1986, and problems with his sled plagued his performance at the Worlds the following year as well, where he only managed to muster a third-place finish.

But this past year he has returned true to form, placing second in the World Championships and second in the World Cup overall standings—behind Italy’s Armin Zoeggeler. Still, he faces an uphill battle to reclaim his superstar status. With three European titles and nine World Cup titles under his belt, Markus Prock of Austria poses a serious threat to Hackl’s plans. And with Prock’s recent announcement that this will be his sixth and last Olympic games, he will be more determined than ever to end his illustrious career on a high note.

The German women are also in pursuit of Olympic gold. Top luge sliders such as Sylke Otto, defending Olympic champ Silke Kraushaar and Barbara Niedernhuber have been besting each other by the narrowest of margins in recent competitions: Kraushaar beat Niedernhuber by a mere two-thousands of a second at the Nagano Games, and Otto in turn overtook Kraushaar at the 2001 European championships by .759 seconds, setting the stage for what it is sure to be a tight, photo-finish at Salt Lake City.

Cross-Country Duel

A photo-finish victory is precisely what happened in the 1994 and 1998 Winter Games between the Norwegian and Italian men’s cross-country relay teams, instigating one of the most exciting rivalries at this year’s Winter Games.

In Norway, where skiing is second only to walking when it comes to ambulating, the cross-country relay is one of the most anticipated events of the Olympics. In fact, almost 5 percent of Norway’s population snatched up tickets to the cross-country race at the 1994 Lillehammer Games. “This shows how perceptions differ from country to country. For Norway, this was the event,” Wallechinsky said. “There were six applications for every one ticket.”

Italy delivered a crushing blow to the thousands of Norwegian fans in Lillehammer who watched breathlessly as Silvio Fauner, after being in a virtual dead heat with Norway’s Bjorn Daehlie, just barely pulled out ahead of Daehlie at the finish line in a nail-biter that, in the end, had both sides applauding the stunning performance.

But the Norwegians returned with a vengeance in Nagano. In a dramatic reversal of fortune, Thomas Alsgaard lunged ahead of Fauner in his last stride to recapture the coveted gold medal for Norway. Now the friendly but intense rivalry heats back up again, with Norway out as the early Olympic favorites having won the 2001 World Championships. But Norway, all too aware of Italy’s track record of dashing the Nordic nation’s hopes, has been careful not to underestimate its Italian competitors.

Biathlon’s Best

A similarly interesting rivalry can be found in the biathlon relay—an event that combines cross-country skiing and marksmanship. That rivalry involves Germany and Russia and traces back to the 1968 Grenoble Games, when the Soviet Union won the first of its six Olympic golds, establishing itself as a superpower in the biathlon relay. The Germans finally overthrew the Russians at the 1992 Albertville Games, continuing their winning streak in 1994 and 1998 with veteran Sven Fischer at the helm of the German team.

Fischer attributed his success to the special bond he has formed with his teammates, Ricco Gross and Frank Luck. That bond will be tested when two other countries, Norway and France, try to muscle in on the Germans’ success. Norway won the silver at Nagano and France captured the 2001 World Championships. In addition, the Germans cannot rule out their new Russian challengers—former states such as the Ukraine and Latvia—who, in the spirit of their Soviet Union predecessors, are also mounting a strong presence in various biathlon events.

In the individual races, the Swedes are pinning their hopes on Magdelena Forsberg, who is poised to win the women’s biathlon after seizing an unprecedented 40 World Cup races. She will face-off against Germany’s Uschi Disl, who, despite being one of the world’s best biathletes, is still considered an underdog. Disl has garnered 11 World Championship medals but has had difficulty shedding her image as the consummate “runner-up.”

Soaring to New Heights

Poland’s Adam Malysz has been catapulted to national hero status after a spectacular string of victories in ski jumping this season, giving his country its best chances for Olympic gold at a Winter Games in 30 years. Malysz, the reigning World Cup leader, has posted nearly a dozen impressive victories in the World Cup circuit, helping him emerge from the shadows of Germany’s Sven Hannawald and Martin Schmitt.

“Ski jumping is extremely interesting from an international perspective this year,” Wallechinsky said. “Out of the blue, Adam Malysz from Poland won a World Cup last year. Now the Poles are all about ski jumping.” And in a country ravaged by economic woes, his surprising wins have not only thrust him into the limelight, they have also sparked “Malysz-mania” in his homeland—his image plastered on everything from cell phones to gingerbread cookies.

Malysz’s dramatic climb to the top began after he fell out of sight in Nagano, finishing a paltry 51st in the normal hill competition. He turned to his first coach to reteach him “the basics” and thus began his stellar comeback. However, despite his recent win at a January World Cup event, Malysz has faltered on several key occasions, most notably at the Four Hills Ski Jumping classic, where Hannawald shattered records by winning all four legs of the prestigious tournament.

Hannawald, an erratic performer known for his self-doubting and nervous nature, went winless for 20 months after rumors of an eating disorder surfaced. But with his triumph at Four Hills, which some experts say is comparable to an Olympic win, Hannawald seems to have overcome his inner demons and erased any doubts about his abilities.

Austria’s Alpine Dynasty

In the world of men’s alpine skiing, Austria is king. Even with the legendary Hermann Maier, dubbed the “Hermanator,” sidelined because of a motorcycle injury, the Austrian men have established themselves as a force to be reckoned with, clinching 26 of the last 28 super-G races and occupying no fewer than five of the top 10 spots in the overall World Cup standings since 1997.

Austrian Stephan Eberharter is at the head of the pack after winning silver in Nagano and a World Cup super-G this year—the culmination of a 10-year odyssey to win in Kitzbuehel, Austria, which is considered to be one of the toughest courses in alpine skiing. But his road to victory has been peppered with disappointment. As a double world champion at age 21, Eberharter struggled with injuries until his coaches relegated him to the minor leagues in 1996. He fought his way back to the talent-rich Austrian “A-team” and now revels in his amazing reincarnation, which has taken him from utter obscurity to becoming the favorite to win Olympic gold.

The Austrian women are doing well in their own right, shutting out the competition with more World Cup downhills and overall titles than any other team. Still, they will have to contend with Switzerland’s Sonja Nef, the defending giant slalom champ, and Sweden’s Anja Paerson, who has been unstoppable since winning the 2001 World Championships. In addition to Sweden, two other Scandinavian countries—Norway and Finland—have quietly waged their own wars on the Austrian women in recent slalom races and hope to oust the powerhouse for the first time in 2002.

And Finally … Canada

The Canadian women’s hockey team is gearing up to face its chief rival, the United States, in a rematch of the finals at Nagano, where they were upset by the U.S. team, 3-1. As the undisputed leaders in women’s hockey, the two countries are almost assured of top berths at this year’s finals; however, the scenario on the men’s front is much more unpredictable, especially after Canada’s devastating loss to the Czech Republic at the 1998 Nagano Games.

The Czechs overwhelmed the heavily favored Canadian team in a heart-pounding overtime shootout. Ironically, Olympic gold has eluded the Canadian men’s hockey team—often hailed as the best hockey team in the world—since 1952, the last time they actually took home the gold. “Hockey will be a real highlight because now you’ve got all these all-star, professional teams. You can’t just assume the U.S. and Canada will take it all,” Wallechinsky said. “With the Russians and the Swedes, it’ll be one classic match up after another.”

Anna Gawel is the assistant editor for The Washington Diplomat.