Olympic notebook: Vice president congratulates lugers

Web posted February 18, 1998

By Dennis Sodomka
Staff Writer

NAGANO, Japan -- When you win the first U.S. Olympic luge medals ever, just about anything can happen.

But when U.S. lugers saw a message that read ``Please call Vice President Al Gore at the White House,'' they thought it was a prank. They called anyway, and it turns out it wasn't a joke. Each of the four luge medalists -- Chris Thorpe, Gordy Sheer, Mark Grimmette and Brian Martin -- spoke with the vice president. As the phone was passed to Martin, he opened with, ``Good Morning, Al,'' bypassing any formal greeting.

After the call, Sheer said, ``I like Al Gore a lot. It was an honor to speak with him. He said `Congratulations, and the country is real proud of us' and `On behalf of the country, we'd like to thank you for doing such a good job.''' Gore's wife Tipper is scheduled to be in Nagano for the closing ceremonies Sunday.

MEDAL SWEEP:

Gianni Romme led his Dutch teammates to a medal sweep in the men's 10,000-meter speed skating Tuesday. He smashed the previous world record by 15.22 seconds to finish in 13 minutes, 15.33 seconds.

Bob de Jong won the silver and Rintje Ritsma the bronze. The Netherlands has won 10 medals at this Winter Olympics, its best showing ever.

``We eat normal. We skate normal. We are just skating very well. It's great,'' Romme said. ``The Dutch are strong in all the distances.''

KC Boutiette was the top U.S. finisher in eighth, setting a U.S. record. David Tamborino was 16th.

FIRST GOLD:

The Japanese ski jumping team thrilled 40,000 fans who braved a snowstorm to cheer them on to a gold medal, its first ever in the team event. The Japanese were fourth after the first day of jumping, thanks largely to a very poor jump by Masahiko Harada, who had cost the team a gold medal in Lillehammer four years ago.

But Harada, 29, came back with a hill-record jump of 137 meters on his second try.

Kazuyoshi Funaki said he was nervous before his final jump with the gold medal in the balance.

``I didn't feel that much pressure during my first jump, but right before my second I truly sympathized with Harada,'' said Funaki, 22. ``I was overwhelmed and overburdened.''

It was Japan's 100th Olympic gold medal, including 93 in the Summer Games. The U.S. team finished 12th.

GERMAN DOMINANCE:

Germany swept all three medals in the women's combined competition, led by Katja Seizinger, who won her second gold of the Olympics. She was followed by Martina Ertl and Hilde Gerg.

Caroline LaLive was the top U.S. finisher in seventh. Alexandra Shaffer was ninth, Jonna Mendes 14th and Kirsten Clark 18th.

RATINGS BOOST:

Former executive director of the U.S. Olympic Committee Harvey Schiller says the lack of controversy in these Winter Olympics has hurt TV ratings.

``There is no real controversy -- good or bad,'' said Schiller, now head of sports programming for Turner Network Television, which is providing cable coverage to go with the CBS broadcast coverage. ``Skating was a big story in '92 and '94,'' he said.

SPEED SKATING:

Korea's Kim Dong-Sung won the men's 1,000-meter short-track speed skating final, ahead of China's Li Jia-jun and Eric Bedard of Canada.

Andy Gabel of the United States was fourth.

Korea also won the women's 3,000-meter short track relay in world-record time, ahead of China and Canada. The U.S. team failed to qualify out of its heat.