Refinding Olympics’ Spirit

Leave it to ebullient ski racer Picabo Street to find an upbeat take on the scandal surrounding the selection of Salt Lake City for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games. “It could be a blessing in disguise,” she says. “Everybody’s talking about the Olympics.”

Not that the 27-year-old Street, a double Olympic medal winner, has any sympathy for Salt Lake spreading lucre among International Olympic Committee members--a situation branded in an investigatory report as a “culture of gift-giving.” Street, who represents athletes on the Salt Lake Olympic Organizing Committee, says the scandal is a slap to the competitors. “What I want the American public to do is remember what the Olympics are all about, and that’s about the athletes, and the personal stories and the spirit of the Games.”

Street won the silver medal in the downhill in the 1994 Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, and in 1995 became the first American to win the World Cup downhill title. She overcame a severe knee injury to win gold in the Super-G race at the Nagano, Japan, Games in 1998. Now recovering from injuries suffered later in a World Cup race, Street is determined to compete for America in the 2002 Games. “I would be retired already if the Olympics were in any other country but this one,” she says.

That is the Olympic spirit. And that is what the International Olympic Committee members must keep in mind when they debate the need for reforming their organization at a meeting later this month in Switzerland.