Covering the Winter Olympics is not as easy as covering, say, a football game.
The problem is that outside of hockey, where there are two simple ways to tell who's ahead - 1) The team that's trying to start the fights isn't, or 2) Look at the scoreboard - you can't tell much by merely watching the finish line at your average ski, bobsled, luge, and speed skating races, or in the figure-skating rink.The first person across any given finish line may in fact wind up in last place when all of the times are posted. And in many events there are also judge's scores and mathematical formulas to be considered.
Take Alpine Combined, for example, which is a combination of downhill and slalom ski races. Even the racers often aren't clear as to what's going on.
"You just ski your best and they let you know how you did," said Kyle Rasmussen of the United States after finishing 21st in the Alpine Combined Tuesday in Albertville.
Which is what sets Nordic Combined, which gets my personal vote as the best event of the Winter Olympics, apart from the others.
Admittedly, it has a name problem. "Nordic Combined" sounds like Sweden and Norway decided to do away with their border. But it has something none of the other events has - a true finish line.
Nordic Combined works like this: On the first day, all of the contestants (nordic combiners?) climb to the top of the ski jump. They each take three jumps and throw out the worst of the three. The cumulative score from their two best jumps determines their placement after the first day.
To this point, Nordic Combined is like every other Winter Olympic sport - somewhat confusing. As in any ski jumping competition, the jumpers are given points according to a formula that combines distance jumped, jumping form, and whether they landed in a telemark position. That sets up the second day of competition - when the real race takes over.
On day two, everyone lines up for a 15-kilometer cross-country ski race. Their starting order is according to how they finished in ski jumping.
The athlete with the best jump starts first.
Everyone else starts behind at staggered intervals. How far behind is determined by how far back they jumped.
In Wednesday's Olympic 15K race in Courchevel, Klaus Ofner, an Austrian who won the previous day's jumping, started first, a full 16 seconds ahead of the racer starting No. 2, a Japanese jumping ace named Reiichi Mikata.
In third place, having to give Ofner a 42-second head start, was Fabrice Guy of France.
On it went until last place, where Bard Elden of Norway started a whopping six minutes and 45 seconds behind Ofner.
The intriguing part of Nordic Combined is that some of the contestants' specialty isn't so much jumping as it is cross-country skiing. Throughout the 15 kilometer race, the jumpers have to try and keep their lead over everyone behind them.
Meanwhile, the crowd at the finish line doesn't have to watch a clock or have an announcer explain what's going on. The first skier across is the winner.
Wednesday in Courchevel, Trond Elden, Bard's brother and a distant 39th after the jumping, started in a five minute, 10 second hole. But Elden is more of a cross-country expert than a jumper, and from the beginning you could see he was serious about making up considerable time.
By the time he was through, he had posted the fastest 15K time of the day and made up almost three minutes, improving all the way to a ninth place finish. His brother was no slouch on his skis either. He had the second fastest race time and improved from 45th to 21st place.
Clearly, what the Elden brothers need is either work on their jumping or a longer race.
The winner wasn't Ofner. He was caught and passed by four skiers and finished fifth. Taking the gold medal was the Frenchman, Guy. Spurred on by the crowd, Guy became Ofner and Mikata's (a horrendous cross-country skier, as it turned out, who finished last in the race and faded all the way to 34th place) worst nightmare - a hometown favorite who also could ski.
That went ditto for another Frenchman, Sylvain Guillame, who skied the cross-country race of his life to make up for his so-so 13th place effort in jumping and win the silver medal.
At the finish line, the crowd sent up a tremendous ovation. Not only had two Frenchmen medaled, but no one had to tell them that they'd medaled, either.