Thursday, January 31, 2002
Ohno gets 'SI Jinx'
By STEVE BUFFERY -- Toronto Sun
American speed skater Apolo Ohno will feel like Apollo Creed after the fictional fighter went 15 rounds with Rocky Balboa, when he takes a gander at this week's Sports Illustrated.
He probably also will scream his last name out loud.
SI decided to "honour" the teenaged short-track speed skating phenom by putting him on the cover of its Olympic edition, which basically has become the kiss of death.
In fact, the cover story of the Jan.21 edition of SI documented the so-called jinx in a 12-page report. Over the years, the subject of many of the magazine's front covers went on to crash and burn, either at the Olympics or in other events.
Obviously, SI isn't fully buying into the jinx, picking Ohno to win a silver and bronze in short track.
As for its other medal selections, SI has agreed with The Associated Press wire service, predicting that Canada will not enjoy as good a Games as it did in Nagano four years ago.
The Canadian Olympic Association has expressed hope that the Salt Lake City-bound team will finish third overall in the medal standings, a two-spot improvement from Nagano -- which was a record showing at the time.
However, like the AP, SI has predicted that Canada actually will drop a placement from Nagano, and will finish sixth overall behind Germany (34 medals), Norway (25), the U.S. (22), Austria (21) and Russia (19).
Some of the magazine's selections were interesting, such as the prediction that the Canadian men's hockey team will finish first, followed by the defending champions from the Czech Republic and Russia. SI has the Americans out of the men's hockey medal picture, despite the fact that the U.S. has won the gold in hockey the past two times the Olympics were held in the U.S. (1960 in Squaw Valley and 1980 in Lake Placid).
In other predictions involving prominent Canadian athletes, SI predicted that defending world pairs figure skating champions Jamie Sale and David Pelletier of Edmonton would finish second to Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze of Russia and that double Olympic silver medallist Elvis Stojko of Richmond Hill would finish out of the medals in men's figure skating.
As was the case with the AP, the magazine predicted that the Canadian alpine ski team would not land on the podium in any event.
2002 Games Short Track Speed Skating Coverage
