Soothsayers Take a Shot at Norway Olympics

Marcello Haugen, a Norwegian soothsayer who once lived at the base of what is now the Lillehammer Olympic Park, was renowned for his accurate predictions.

So when word spread that Haugen predicted a major ski competition would be canceled in Lillehammer in February 1994 due to extreme cold, some locals began to worry.

Fret not, the psychic’s biographer, Oistein Parmann, told the Lillehammer Olympic Organizing Committee’s internal magazine. Parmann said Haugen, who died in 1967, never made such a prediction.

Others have, however.

Stig Oyen, a Norwegian astrologer, told the magazine that the Feb. 12-27 Games would be a sporting success, but a mess in many other ways. He predicted wet weather, and that the Games would be troublesome for the news media, especially photographers.

He also predicted a shock for the home country in the 10,000-meter speedskating competition, in which Norwegian Johann Olav Koss is a favorite. He also said Norway will take gold in the men’s Nordic skiing relay and that a Russian would edge out a Norwegian to win the women’s 10-kilometer Nordic skiing pursuit.

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SECOND WIND: With about six weeks to go before the opening ceremony, the staff of the Lillehammer Games is ready, willing and weary.

Tor Aune, spokesman for the Lillehammer Olympic Organizing Committee, said the hectic pace of preparation was taking its toll, and that he--like many of his co-workers--was getting a second wind.

“But everything is under control,” he said in an interview with the Norwegian news agency NTB. “We are unreservedly optimistic.”

Aune said that for much of the staff, the Games had already begun. They are moving into venues and preparing for the arrival of about 2,000 athletes, thousands of reporters and hordes of spectators.

The biggest challenge now is expecting the unexpected.

“We know there is a small margin between success and fiasco. We have contingency plans tucked away everywhere, and we assume the worst possible things will happen,” Aune said.

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TRAGIC TENT: Efforts to recover a tent used by Norwegian Roald Amundsen when he conquered the South Pole in 1911 were canceled this week when an expedition member fell into a crevasse and died.

The nine-member Norwegian expedition, funded partly by the Lillehammer Olympic Organizing Committee, had hoped to dig 50 feet into the ice to retrieve Amundsen’s tent from the Pole in time for the Winter Olympics.

On Dec. 26, the team’s second in command, 36-year-old Jostein Helgestad, fell into a 165-foot-deep crack in the ice. Despite a dramatic rescue effort by U.S. and Norwegian personnel, he was declared dead. His body was not recovered.

After the accident, the team abandoned plans to bring the tent to Lillehammer for the Games.

Amundsen and his team beat Briton Robert Scott in the race to become the first expedition to reach the South Pole. Scott died in the effort.

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REINDEER RUCKUS: Plans to haul a herd of reindeer from Norway’s arctic region to Lillehammer for the Olympics have animal protection activists seeing as red as Rudolph’s nose.

The 160 reindeer, herded by Laplanders, are to be shipped 1,090 miles in rail cars or trucks for the Games.

Some of the antlered animals--commonly used as food in Norway--will be paraded into the opening ceremony. Others will be available to give reindeer sleigh rides, or will simply mill around at a Lapp encampment being built for the Games.

But the animal protection group Dyrebeskyttelsen i Norge claims the reindeer are being made to suffer in the name of tourism.

“To ship reindeer on trucks or rail cars is pure cruelty to animals,” said group spokeswoman Tatiana Kapsto.

The group asked the government to stop the plan, but the Ministry of Agriculture refused, saying that the domesticated reindeer are used to human activity and should withstand the trip with no trouble.

“I am furious that the agriculture ministry has approved,” Kapsto told the Oslo newspaper Verdens Gang. “We will mobilize heavily during the Olympics to show our disgust.”