NOTES

After Tonya Harding finished sixth in the women’s figure skating original program, her coach, Dody Teachman, second-guessed their decision to arrive here only four days ago: “Now, it’s hindsight, but if we had been here a few days earlier, it could have made a difference.”

Japan’s Midori Ito, the women’s figure skating gold-medal favorite before finishing fourth, decided only a few hours before the original program to change her required combination jump from a difficult triple axel-double toe to a more conservative triple lutz-double toe. Her strategy backfired when she fell on the triple lutz.

“You never, ever change a combination on the day of a competition,” 1988 men’s champion Brian Boitano said.

Evy Scotvold, who coaches U.S. skaters Paul Wylie and Nancy Kerrigan, said: “I don’t know Midori that well. Every skater is different. But it’s a scary thing to change your program that close to the competition. When we’ve tried it with our skaters, we’ve seen them lose their focus.”

After winning a gold medal in the giant slalom, Alberto Tomba stopped off Tuesday night at Casa Italia, staffed with chefs brought in from Italy to work at this three-week-long restaurant in Bourg-St. Maurice.

Wearing his new necklace, he ate a four-course meal--including two pasta dishes--all washed down with a couple of glasses of champagne. This was after he had consumed three sandwiches immediately after the race.

“I was hungry,” he said. “All I had for lunch was some chocolate.”