HIS COMMENTS BOMB WITH THE PUBLIC

U.S. luge spokesman Sandy Caligiore said he used a poor choice of words when he told a publication that allowing Georg Hackl to use those new, aerodynamically designed booties was “like giving a superpower the atomic bomb.”

Caligiore’s comments, in response to the bootie controversy that accompanied Hackl’s third consecutive gold-medal victory in men’s luge, appeared in Nagano ‘98, official publication of the Winter Olympics, and may have touched nerves in Japan, the only country to have the atomic bomb used against it.

“In using hyperbole, maybe I should have used a different analogy,” Caligiore said.