TAKING CENTER STAGE

FIGURE SKATING

Michael Weiss is America’s future and would be fortunate to crack top five, but he will try a quadruple lutz and he is the only skater who even practices it these days.

MEN’S HOCKEY

The ragtag band of amateurs that stunned the Soviet Union in the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” has been replaced by NHL professionals, competing for the first time in the Olympics.

SKIING

Luc Alphand and all the other skiers will have to be in top form to beat Austria’s Herrmann Maier, who is favored to medal in downhill, super-G, giant slalom and combined.