WINTER OLYMPICS : For One American, 11th Is Good Sledding

American Miroslav Zajonc had two practice runs on his luge and then made two more runs in the Olympic doubles event Friday. After each one, Zajonc did the same thing as soon as he got off the sled. He limped away on crutches.

Since Zajonc is one-half of the United States’ top doubles team, this could not be considered a very good sign.

But success should sometimes be measured in something other than medals, and for Zajonc, who defected from Czechoslovakia in 1981, his 11th-place finish with teammate Tim Nardiello was still pretty much a dream come true.

“I am very proud and I am very thankful to be racing for the United States,” Zajonc said. “I was able to race in the Olympics. Too bad I didn’t win a medal, but I did the best I could.”

Only five weeks ago, Zajonc and Nardiello thought they had a real shot at a medal. Then Zajonc shattered his right heel in a training accident at Lake Placid, N.Y. At 27, he thought his final chance to race in the Olympics had passed him by.

Team manager Mary Ellen Fletcher quickly went to visit Zajonc as he lay in a hospital bed and she told him not to be discouraged.

“She said I would race in the Olympics,” Zajonc said.

Did he believe her?

“I thought she was crazy,” he said.

Zajonc wasn’t able to get on a sled for more than a month, but he never gave up hope for the Olympics. Zajonc (pronounced Zy-ons) wore a protective cast over his foot Friday and competed in his first--and last--Olympics.

“That’s it, that’s it,” Zajonc said as he balanced himself on crutches. “It’s the last (in competition) for this country.”

It was an upset that he ever got on a sled for the United States in the first place. Zajonc began sliding competitively at the age of 15 in Novy Smokovec, Czechoslovakia, and was the Czech junior national champion in 1979.

He was 19 and too young to make the Czech doubles team at the Lake Placid Games, so Zajonc missed his first Olympics. The next year, he defected to the United States.

All Zajonc wanted to do was luge for America. But there is a five-year waiting period for citizenship, so the U.S. luge team could not include Zajonc on its national team.

Zajonc decided to compete for Team Canada while he waited. In 1983, Zajonc won the World Luge Championships in Lake Placid. But when the 1984 Olympics were held in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, Zajonc was still without a country and he missed the Olympics again.

Zajonc joined the U.S. national team in 1985 and had an immediate impact on a struggling squad. He won the U.S. national singles title and then won it again in 1986.

The first and only American to win two medals in senior international luge, Zajonc had become a doubles specialist when he broke a heel.

“If this hadn’t happened to me, I would feel very confident that we had a great chance to win a medal,” he said.

The second U.S. doubles team of Steve Maher and Jeff Barile finished 16th out of 18 teams Friday.

The gold and silver medals went to East Germany, which probably could have also won the bronze, except they only started two teams.

World champions Joerg Hoffmann and Jochen Pietzsch gave East Germany a sweep of the luge gold medals, and they won the doubles in a one-run record time.

The East Germans, who won all three women’s luge medals Thursday, also won the men’s luge gold medal Monday to give them six of the nine medals in the event.

“We have depth, a good training program and the tracks to practice on,” Hoffmann said.

Zajonc said he wasn’t bothered by the cast he wore during the two runs down the luge track.

“No, the foot didn’t bother me at all,” he said. “But I missed virtually five weeks of training. It was just the timing.”

If Zajonc was disappointed, he didn’t act like it.

“One day, we will win,” he said. “We are right there, very close. I am just very happy to be here right now.”