THE INSIDE SCOOP

No serious biography on skier Alberto Tomba would be complete without a thorough examination of this year’s Italian men’s Alpine Olympic team media guide, which offers fascinating details of the skier’s life and times.

For example, the Italian guide keeps the reader riveted with heart-warming recollections of Tomba’s school days.

STUDIES: He finished the last year of high school, though he didn’t sustain the final exam.

Then, there are Tomba’s pursuits off the slopes.

HOBBIES: He likes all sports.

The world, of course, is dying to know what Tomba is going to do once his storied ski-racing career is over.

Here, the Italian guide offers a researcher the kind of insight one does not normally find in hastily assembled, run-of-the-mill publications.

FUTURE: What he will do with his life once his skiing career is over is something he’ll decide when the time comes.

KILLING TIME AWAY FROM THE SLOPES

What did Olympic alpine ski racers do during all the weather delays?

Tommy Moe and Daron Rahlves played floor hockey in their Hakuba hotel rooms.

Rahlves has also belted out a few tunes at the hotel karaoke, losing his voice to the songs of Guns ‘N Roses and James Brown.

Chad Fleischer went to Nagano to catch a hockey game.

Austria’s Alexandra Meissnitzer made it through the women’s super-giant slalom OK, winning the bronze medal, but later in the week cracked her head when she slipped in the bathtub. The cut required seven stitches, but Meissnitzer came back to finish eighth in Monday’s women’s downhill.

American Picabo Street and her boyfriend, J.J., used the down time to figure out a new Olympic sport.

“Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise,” Street said of the race delays, “if people are sitting around seeing how curling works.”

AND NOW A WORD FROM STUBBY STREET

After she struck it rich, Street made her father, Stubby, quit his job as a stone mason. Stubby first became a hit at the 1994 Lillehammer Games when he regaled the media with wild stories of his 1960s youth, which included hang time with Timothy Leary and his medicine cabinet.

Stubby was asked Monday to explain the gold-medal rise of his daughter.

“I don’t know,” Stubby said. “I’m just really, really proud. We root for her, and support her, and think we have something to do with it. But she has such internal strength.”

Picabo has also enlisted Stubby as her business liaison, but he wouldn’t speculate what his daughter’s Olympic gold medal would mean on the open market.

“She still wants to be the best,” Stubby said. “The Wheaties box and all that will come later. It’s not about money and endorsements, it’s about being the best in the world.”