WINTER OLYMPICS : Notebook : Boitano: Look Out for Sasha

“It’s not a battle of the Brians.”

That is four-time U.S. figure skating champion Brian Boitano’s perception of the Olympic men’s competition, which begins today with the compulsory school figures. He seemed put out with media predictions that the gold medal will be won by either him or Canada’s Brian Orser, while the Soviet Union’s Alexander (Sasha) Fadeev has been virtually ignored.

“Sasha is a confident skater, and he shouldn’t be shortchanged,” Boitano said. “He can put it together when he needs to. He’s one of the co-favorites.”

All three have won world championships, Fadeev in 1985, Boitano in 1986 and Orser last year.

Calgary Sun columnist Larry Tucker has nicknamed the U.S. men speed skaters “Team Lawsuit.”

Referring to numerous complaints, including threats of litigation, about the team selection, Tucker wrote: “If they aren’t (complaining), they’re moaning. If they aren’t in court, they’re threating to go there. They’ve done more for the legal profession than long black robes.

“They might not be the Ugly Americans. but they sure as hell aren’t all that pretty, either.”

France’s Jean-Claude Killy, one of two men to win three gold medals in Alpine skiing in the same Olympics, on Monday’s downhill champion Pirmin Zurbriggen of Switzerland: “He has always refused to believe skiing was just two boards of wood on snow. He has refused specialization.”

Considering the temperature swings, from as low as 20 below zero last week to an expected high of 52 above this week, media information officials say the two questions they’ve been asked most often are, “Is it always this cold in the winter?” and, “Is it always this warm in the winter?”

Some Calgary residents, otherwise thrilled to have the Winter Olympics, are less than excited about the empty seats they see on television at some events, seats that they figure they could be filling.

According to the Calgary Herald, TV viewers who wanted to be on-the-spot viewers have been protesting the vacancies in the VIP sections.

“It’s a crime to see seats empty,” said Beth Armstrong. “I’ve been trying to get tickets since they went on sale.”

International Olympic Committee members and international sports federation heads are guaranteed access to prime seats for all events, and official Games sponsors were allowed to buy big blocks of tickets before the public got its chance. Corporate sponsors usually distribute their tickets to customers and, sometimes, employees.

Said Renee Smith, speaking for OCO ‘88, the Calgary organizing committee: “We’re somewhat handcuffed by the Olympic charter. We have to set aside those (IOC and federation) seats.”

Added Terry Steward, OCO information services manager, of the sponsors’ seats: “All we can do is assume the people didn’t show up.”

OCO said that it could not predict which VIP seats would be used and which wouldn’t and that there was no way a seat, once sold or accounted for, could be reallocated for public consumption.

Some people here for the Games are disturbed about what they consider tight security.

Simon Schenk, the Swiss hockey coach, was quoted as saying: “There seem to be a lot of controls here. Some of my players have told me they’re surprised they don’t have to show their passes at the blue line when they back-check.”

Veterans of the ’84 Winter Games at Sarajevo know better.

There, airport-type metal detectors were installed at every venue and had to be passed through by everyone entering. It was a tedious, time-consuming, sometimes aggravating process.

Here, those with official credentials need only stand still long enough to allow the bar codes on their passes to be scanned, and the OCO volunteers at the entrances are unfailingly polite and cheerful.

And here, too, although local police and Mounties--also unfailingly cheerful and polite--are clearly evident, there are few guns in sight, and those few are well holstered side-arms. At Sarajevo, grim-faced national militiamen, automatic rifles strapped to their backs, tended to take some of the fun out of the proceedings.

Male veterans of Sarajevo have noticed one other difference here, too. There are no cleaning women mopping at their feet in the men’s room. Disconcertingly, there were at Sarajevo.

The luge-bobsled run here appears to be an accident waiting to happen.

As at most such facilities, spectators may walk right up to the side and peer in, even while sleds are shooting the chute. There is nothing but common sense keeping people from throwing something onto the track or at the athletes as they whiz by, and the wonder is that common sense has been so commonly observed.

Here, though, the track workers exhibit a nonchalance bordering on carelessness. They commonly stand on the track walls while sleds go by, sometimes leaning over the track and bracing themselves against the other side.

They also show no great concern to the traditional warning of “Sled in the track,” often leaping clear just seconds before hurtling sleds reach their stations.

British bobsledder Tom De La Hunty said that he nearly killed a track worker during a practice session.

“He got out of the way just as I got to him,” De La Hunty said. “I wouldn’t just have had his leg off if I’d hit him, he would have been dead and so would I. I’ve never had anything like it happen to me before. My heart nearly stopped. I’ve never been so scared.”

Another bobsled driver, Canadian Chris Lori, had an unsettling experience, although his had nothing to do with track workers.

At the end of a practice run, brakeman Ken LeBlanc pulled up on the brake handle, but the brakes didn’t work.

The sled flashed past the finishing platform, past the photographers on the TV ramp beside the track, off the end of the safety run, over the last-resort straw bales and finally stopped on a paved road, possibly ruining the runners, which are highly honed and polished stainless steel.

A man from Paducah, Ky., was so thrilled by a U.S. goal in an Olympic hockey game that he accidentally shot himself in the hand, police said.

Paul Joseph Grant, 18, was in stable condition Tuesday at Western Baptist Hospital. A .38 bullet had pierced his left hand.

A police report said Grant was preparing to store the pistol as he watched the U.S.-Czechoslovakia game Monday night.

He was cradling the barrel in his left hand when the Americans scored. Grant got so excited he pulled the trigger, police said.

“I tensed up and it went off,” Grant said. Doctors have told him his hand will be fine, he said.

The Czechs won the game, 7-5.

For the first time at these Games, doping has been hinted at.

Marty Hall, the Canadian cross-country skiing coach, suggested that the 1-2 finish by Soviet skiers, who beat the favored Swedes and Finns handily in the men’s 30-kilometer classical race, was not achieved strictly by technique and technology.

“It’s not the wax on the bottom, it’s the body on the top of the skis,” Hall said. “There’s been a lot more drugging going on in this sport than people realize.”

Blood-doping? he was asked.

“Well, that’s the most logical thing. . . . These guys have been good for a long, long time, but you just have to wonder.”

In blood-doping, blood is removed from an athlete, stored, then reinfused into the body shortly before competition, giving the athlete more oxygen to call on. It is against Olympic rules, but there is no reliable test for it.

A case of suspected defection turned out to be nothing of the sort here.

Three Romanian woman speed skaters and a coach left the athletes’ village before the Opening Ceremony, and the word was that they had probably defected.

Not so. They left to go back to Romania, for reasons best known to them.

Times assistant sports editor Mike Kupper and the Associated Press contributed to this story.