Winner: After the 2002 Winter Olympics, sports officials predicted the Games would energize Utahns to the point where home-grown athletes would begin making a mark. Orem's Noelle Pikus-Pace was already training in the skeleton when the Olympics were here, but her rise to the top of the World Cup standings in recent days after winning three important races is a sign that Utahns are indeed getting ready to surprise the world.
Pikus-Pace acts a little surprised by it all, saying she never really had a goal of qualifying for the Olympics. Now, although it still is early, she is a favorite not only to qualify for next year's Games, but to win it all. Sort of makes you wonder what other future phenoms may be working out at all those Olympic facilities that line the Wasatch Front.
Loser: Hearing the vending machine industry launch an anti-obesity campaign sort of sounds like hearing the cigarette industry launch an anti-smoking campaign. A lot of people have the sneaking suspicion that a good chunk of the nation's obesity problem has something to do with the ubiquity of fat-and-calorie laden machines in schools and places of employment nationwide.
The new campaign will put colored stickers on the machines. A green sticker means the snack is a good choice. Yellow is for foods you should eat only occasionally, and red is for those unhealthy things that, ironically, tend to appeal to most people's taste buds.
Good luck with that, America. In the meantime, remember that you and your will-power are the only true defenses against eating things that do little other than make you fat.
Winner: Think you have an albatross on your neck? You should be so lucky. Scientists recently placed sensors on several of the birds, just to track where they go after breeding and raising their young near Antarctica. What they learned was astounding. Many of the birds traveled completely around the world, some several times over. One bird logged over 13,000 miles in only 46 days.
Rather than bringing to mind a heavy worry or burden, the birds ought to be synonymous with free and limitless flight.