When The Day finally arrived at the Olympics today, Norwegians celebrated with two huge victory parties. But they had nothing to do with figure skating.
Cheered on by 23,000 screaming, jumping, flag-waving, cowbell-banging spectators on Hafjell mountain, three Norwegians swept the men's Alpine combined and rocketed the home team past Russia into the overall medals lead.Pandemonium erupted again 90 minutes later at the Lysgards-bakkene ski jump arena when the home team won gold and silver on the 90-meter hill. Espen Bredesen soared to a hill-record 104 meters on his last jump.
Lasse Ottesen of Norway took the silver and Dieter Thoma of Germany the bronze.
The medals sweep by Lasse Kjus, triple medalist Kjetil Andre Aamodt and Harald Strand Nilsen was the first in an Olympics Alpine race since Austrian women achieved the feat in 1964. USA's Tommy Moe finished fifth.
For Americans and much of the world, it was all an entertaining warmup act for Nancy Kerrigan and company. Some nine hours after the wild Alpine finish, the new figure-skating champion was to be crowned in Hamar with about 1 billion people looking on, live or on tape-delay.
A banged-up Oksana Baiul, second behind Kerrigan in the technical program, skipped half of her routine at practice today after a scary collision with another skater on Thursday.
Baiul's right shin was wrapped with a bandage today, and when the Ukrainian left the ice early she complained that her back hurt. She was set to skate tonight, but her coach, Galina Zmievskaya, reportedly was seen leaving the arena in tears.
Any medal by Kerrigan would be a record-tying 12th for the Americans, who collected a gold from Cathy Turner and a bronze Thursday night in women's short-track speedskating. That competition resembled a Roller Derby rumble, with bodies flying and tempers flaring, and today IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch asked for a review.
Moe, whose downhill gold on the Games' first Sunday kicked off a four-medal run by U.S. skiers, held third behind two Norwegians after the first run of the slalom portion of the Alpine combined. He had a strong second run but appeared to ski wide of one gate near the bottom and lost critical time.
Turner practically had to hire a lawyer to fend off the protests after she successfully defended her Olympic title in the 500-meter short-track race. Amy Peterson of Maplewood, Minn., was an uncontroversial third.
First, world champion Nathalie Lambert of Canada called Turner "brutal" and blamed her for a fall that eliminated her in a quarterfinal heat.
Then silver medalist Zhang Yanmei of China contended that the American was a dirty skater who had grabbed her leg and knocked her off balance when she passed her en route to the victory.
Zhang stalked off the medals podium she had to share with Turner, angrily tossing a bouquet of flowers across the rink. The officials rejected her appeal.
That ruling was enough for Turner, a former Ice Capades skater from Hilton, N.Y., whose fiery personality has alienated some of her own teammates.
"I don't know what's going on, I just know that everybody's mad at me," the 31-year-old said. "I felt confident and I expected if I didn't get off the line first, it would maybe get a little hairy. But that goes with the sport."
Turner now has four Olympic medals - a gold and a relay bronze here, and a gold and a relay silver from 1992.