OFTEN portrayed as a showcase for freaks, lunatics and backpackers, the Winter Olympic Games, which open in Turin tomorrow, are not so much a vehicle for high jinks as a melting pot of high speed, high stakes, high security and high costs. The United States team alone have spent $35 million (about £20 million) on their team of 211, while Great Britain have thrown a record £5 million at a squad of 40.
Despite the assurance this week from Richard Caborn, the Sports Minister, that there would be no place for an Eddie Edwards figure at the 2012 London Olympics, it was hardly necessary. No longer does the British Olympic Association pick tourist Olympians, those who may embarrass the nation, as Edwards did in ski jumping at the 1988 Games in Calgary, Canada.
All 24 men and 16 women in the Britain team have had to prove their potential to finish in the top half of their competition and international winter sports federations have moved to ensure that there is no more scope for comedy acts here than at the Summer Games. Eric the Eel, a swimmer, and Trevor the Tortoise, a runner, have come and gone since Eddie the Eagle.
Rejecting a plea that it would help to promote the Winter Games in Africa, the International Ski Federation has blocked the participation here of Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong, from Milton Keynes, as a slalom skier for Ghana. Luge has been less demanding, however, allowing Werner Hoeger, a 52-year-old oversized Venezuelan, on to the entry list. Largely, though, the Games are serious business, not least because it is costing $3.6 b illion to stage them in this Italian city and surrounding mountains.
It was Bill Johnson, a US skier, who first drew attention to the high stakes for competitors at Winter Games when, after winning the men’s downhill in 1984, he was asked what the gold medal meant to him. “Money, money, money,” came Johnson’s reply at a time when the perception was that Olympic sport was amateur.
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The conclusion that the Winter Games is a place for the lunatic fringe performing extreme sports with camaraderie is easily drawn from the sight of aerial skiers upside down, skeleton sliders going head-first down ice tracks at 80mph and short-track speed skaters tripping over each other.
Camaraderie was hardly on Tonya Harding’s mind before the 1994 figure skating competition in Lillehammer, Norway. Seeing Nancy Kerrigan, her fellow American, as a rival for an Olympic medal, Harding’s boyfriend, Jeff Gillooly, hired thugs to smash her knee before the US Championships.
The hitmen, though, made a poor job of their $6,500 contract and Kerrigan recovered to win an Olympic silver medal. For her part in the conspiracy, Harding was ordered to perform 500 hours of community service and fined $100,000.
For emotional violence, Jean Racine, a US bobsleighing competitor at the 2002 Games, takes some beating. Racine was willing to sacrifice anything for an Olympic medal, even her best friend and team-mate, Jen Davidson. Racine dismissed Davidson two months before the Games in Salt Lake City, bringing in a new brakeman, Gea Johnson. “I have potentially thrown my friendship away, but this is the Olympics, ” Racine said. How did they do? Johnson injured a hamstring and they placed fifth.
Attention turns to Apolo Ohno, a US speed skater, and his rivalry with the South Koreans. Ohno was awarded the 1,500 metres gold in 2002 after Kim Dong Sung was disqualified for obstructing his path. Short track is an obsession in South Korea and, in a poll taken before Korea co-hosted the football World Cup that year, Ohno finished ahead of Osama bin Laden as the person Koreans least wanted to attend.
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Last October, Ohno went to Seoul for a World Cup meeting and, for his protection, was greeted at the airport by 100 police in riot gear. Disqualified for pushing, the packed house was thrilled but Ohno remains a strong favourite to win a medal in each of the three individual events. He is a significant part of the US plan to top the Winter Games medals table for the first time since 1932.
The US went from a previous best haul of 13 medals to 34 in Salt Lake. “And it was not just because we had home advantage,” Robert Condron, the team spokesman, said. Now the target for this nation of 294 million people is to overhaul Norway — population 4.5 million — as the No 1 Winter Olympics sports nation.
Britain and Australia, with 40 competitors each, renew sporting rivalries and are closely matched. But if only Britain had a Dale Begg-Smith, a gold-medal favourite. Begg-Smith is the World Cup leader in moguls skiing after switching allegiance from Canada to Australia. Canada complained that he spent too much time working, but Begg-Smith, while reaching the top of his sport, has become a millionaire from his internet business at 21.
Money, money, money. Move over Bill Johnson.
BEFORE THEY WERE SERIOUS
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When Tony Nash and Robin Dixon won Olympic bobsleighing gold for Great Britain in 1964, they did so only after the spirit of goodwill was extended by the Italy team. The Britons suffered a broken axle bolt on the first run but the Italians, who went on to finish second and third, lent them one for repairs.