WINTER OLYMPICS : Notebook : Sabotage in Polish Drug Test Charged

If there is 90-meter ski jumping in the Games, Great Britain’s hapless Eddy Edwards will have a chance to participate. The International Ski Federation threatened to clip Eddy the Eagle’s wings because officials feared he would injure himself.

But the chief of competition, Rob McCormack, said the decision belongs to Edwards.

“If we believe the situation for the jump would be dangerous for the Eagle, we’d sit down and discuss it with him,” McCormack said. “But if he chooses to go beyond my recommendation, that’s up to him.”

Edwards said, “Come what may, I want to jump.”

Add Eddy: Edwards’ mother, Jeanette, said the worldwide media attention has worn out Eddy, whom she calls Michael.

“The British press are at it again,” she told The Calgary Sun. “One paper has a story saying that Michael’s girlfriend, Hannah Gratton, and Michael have had a row and that she’s gone home.

“That’s rubbish. Hannah is a wonderful girl, very warmhearted and sweet. It’s true that she has signed a contract with another British paper for her exclusive story. But she regrets it.”

Eight Chinese Olympians have returned home, at least two of them female figure skaters who left before their events were held.

The athletes were apparently injured, according to Terry Bullick of information services, but it was not known whether they were injured before or after arriving here.

Mateja Svet, the Yugoslav racer who won a silver and two bronze medals at the 1987 World Alpine Championships, is being cheered on at the Olympics by many of the same countrymen who showed up at Crans-Montana, Switzerland, last year.

Wearing strange, hairy folk costumes, clanging huge bells, beating drums and waving the Yugoslav flag, they paraded into the finish area just before Monday’s super-G race on Mt. Allan.

The dozen or so fans stayed just long enough for Svet’s run, then paraded out, noisier than ever.

Skiing in her first race of the Games, she finished 20th.

Times assistant sports editors Mike Kupper and Bob Lochner contributed to this story.