Friday, February 8, 2002
Salt Lake gets smog warning
By CHRIS STEVENSON -- SLAM! Sports
SALT LAKE CITY - The official sound of these Olympic Games started out to be the beep of the metal detectors in the so-called "Mag-and-Bag" security checkpoints.
If we don't get the snow and high winds they're forecasting for Thursday night, the official sound could become a cough.
The city has been caught under a blanket of brown smog for most of this week in what the locals call an "inversion." It's an air mass that basically pins the crappy air in the valley (the Native Americans first on this scene actually called it "Valley of the Smoke"). In addition to not being very attractive - the smog obscures the Wasatch Mountains which we are told are quite stunning - the inversion presents health problems: watery eyes, a burning throat and a cough.
There have been health advisories all this week and locals have been forbidden from using their fireplaces and woodstoves.
Thankfully, the athletes competing at the mountain venues are spared the problem and hopefully, so too will be the athletes competing in the events in the city.
The smog was unwelcome, too, for the lighting of the Olympic Rings on the side of Twin Peaks Mountain. They're the largest Olympic Rings ever at 160 feet in diameter, twice the size of the rings which were on the Harbour Bridge in Sydney and twice the size of the Hollywood sign.
YEAH, THAT'S THE OLYMPIC SPIRIT: Short-track speedskater Amy Petersen was selected by her American teammates to carry the flag in the Opening Ceremonies Friday night, much, one assumes, to the disappointment of skier Picabo Street, who had been openly campaigning for the job. That is a no-no, apparently. "I wasn't in on the voting process," said Petersen when asked if Street's campaigning had worked against her. "It's not about campaigning. It's about gaining the respect of your fellow athletes. I hope that's why I was chosen." In a related story, former speedskater Eric Heiden apparently turned down any role in the Opening Ceremonies that wasn't lighting the torch. Bye-bye Heiden. That honour is rumoured to be going to the 1980 USA men's hockey team...
GUESS I'LL NEED A BIB: Multi-million dollar sponsorship deals are as much as part of the Olympic Games as bid scandals (okay, we're told those are a thing of the past) and traffic snarls. Thing is, Games organizers sometimes get more VIK (Value in Kind, products or services instead of cash) than they know what to do with. The Salt Lake Tribune got a copy of the budget for these Games and it revealed the organizing committee wound up with $4.2 million worth of beer from Budweiser and some other stuff. The former SLOC regime never wanted Bud as a sponsor because of the way alchohol is viewed here. "We used to joke that we could put a faucet outside the organizing committee offices and let everyone in the city drink for free and we'd never run out of all the beer they were trying to cram down our throats," said former SLOC VP Dave Johnson. In addition to the beer, the organizers wound up with passes to Anheuser-Busch theme parks...
HEAR AND THERE: There were two huge American flags - we're talking like eight stories high - hanging between three huge smokestacks near the hotel we're staying at near the airport. Thursday morning there was only one...You can get a massage - for free - in the main press centre. I'm going to need one soon.
2002 Games News Coverage
