Once More: Who Is He?

Ruthie Bolton-Holifield grew up in Mississippi, not exactly a winter sports wonderland.

So when the U.S. basketball player was told after blowing out a knee that her doctor would be Eric Heiden, she figured he was just another orthopedic surgeon.

“I had never heard of him,” Bolton-Holifield admitted this week in Sydney. “I wasn’t really big on winter sports and my husband was like, ‘You don’t know who he is? He was a skater. He was in the Olympics.’ I just didn’t know.”

And not just any skater. Heiden won five gold medals in speedskating at the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid, stamping his name forever in the lore of the Winter Games. Last year, a panel assembled by the Associated Press named Heiden the Winter Olympian of the Century.

Oh, yeah, that Eric Heiden.

Bolton-Holifield, a guard for the U.S. women’s basketball team, apologized to Heiden for not realizing who he was. Heiden, a modest, easygoing sort who just happens to have thunderous thighs, took no offense. He even offered to refer Bolton-Holifield to another doctor.

“I was like, are you kidding me?” she said. “You’re a five-time gold medalist and you ask me can I rely on you? Yes, I can.”

On June 29, 1998, Heiden repaired Bolton-Holifield’s shredded left knee. Six Olympic gold medals were represented in that operating room--the five won by Heiden and the one Bolton-Holifield earned in the 1996 Atlanta Games.

“He was real proud after the surgery,” Bolton-Holifield said.

RIVALRY HEATS UP DOWN UNDER

Australians have numerous jokes about their Oceania neighbors from New Zealand, most of them with a punch line that includes sheep.

The jokes this week in Sydney, however, are about the Kiwi Olympic team, which, through Thursday, had yet to win any medals.

“If you’re a New Zealander in Australia--don’t admit it,” is one line from Channel Seven’s “The Dream Show.”

Now the New Zealanders are whining, or, as Australians say, whinging.

Under a headline in the New Zealand Herald reading, “Trust the Aussies to Rub It In,” the newspaper reported, “As if the constant Ocker crowing about the swimming deeds of ‘Thorpy’ and ‘Klimmy’ wasn’t enough, they’ve started pointing the finger of scorn at New Zealand’s nonappearance on the medal tables.”

YOU COULD LOOK IT UP

Australians who attend the baseball competition here seem to like the game OK, comparing games to one-day cricket matches, but they’re having difficulty with “the obligatory crowd leg stretch,” as it was called in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph.

Especially the part where they’re supposed to sing, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”

Mothers cover their children’s ears on the line, “Root, root, root, for the home team,” the word root having an entirely different meaning here.

LOST IN HIS OWN WORLD

Matt Welsh, the Australian swimmer who won a bronze medal in the 200-meter backstroke Thursday, was asked what he actually sees while backstroking.

“Water is flowing over my face, so it’s like, I can see, then I can’t, I can see, then I can’t,” he explained perfectly.

He said when he was younger, he tried to look for a line in the ceiling and follow it.

“I was always getting tangled up in the lane lines, and I needed direction,” he said. “But no more. An atomic bomb could go off in front my face and I wouldn’t notice it.”

He said his biggest problem now is that he gets too comfortable, and forgets about the flags that warn backstrokers of the end of the pool.

“I’ll be swimming along and see the flags and think, cool, flags,” he said. “Then I’ll realize, wait a minute, that means I have to turn! So sometimes I get in trouble on my turns.”

ONE WOMAN’S HORROR . . .

A reporter at the tennis venue was pursuing a story angle Thursday about how much some of the tennis players were enjoying their experience in the athletes’ village.

First, he asked Venus Williams, who is living in a hotel, rather than the village.

“It’s a little uncomfortable going there,” she said. “I would just like to go and talk to some of them, but everybody wants to have me pose for pictures, and I don’t care for that.”

Later, he asked Monica Seles.

She said, “I love the atmosphere. If somebody asks me to pose for a picture, I consider it an honor.”

BONDI BEACH PARTY

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the announcer begins, “please put your hands together for the world’s biggest beach volleyball fan.”

All eyes turn to Roberto Santana, known as “Seven Ball,” who lifts up his 480-pound body and starts a rhythmic clapping that quickly spreads through the Bondi Beach stadium.

His companion on trombone joins in, and so does everyone else. Kids in baggy pants dance in the aisles, while face-painted, wig-wearing adults clap and holler. Flags of all sizes and colors wave.

Santana, though, is a virtual wall of a man who stands out in any crowd. He and his four companions came from Rio de Janeiro as professional fans, sponsored by Speedo to get the dancing and partying going, Brazilian-style. Offering a mix of samba and other popular Brazilian music, they never fail to inspire dancing and clapping, with people constantly approaching to take photos.

“I’m very happy to be here, making a big party with the Australian people,” Santana said through an interpreter. “It’s a different language, I don’t understand all that much, but people have made us feel welcome.”

MONEY FOR NOTHING

The IOC doesn’t have an official sponsors category for discos. Midnight Shift, a downtown Sydney nightclub, isn’t letting that get in its way.

The bar, a 10-minute walk from Sydney’s famous opera house and just steps away from streets used during the triathlon competition, has painted four-foot foam circles to resemble the IOC’s most valued image and hung them in its street-front window.

The investment is already paying off.

“We did $21,000 on the night of the opening ceremony; we usually only do about $11,000,” said Andrew Burke, the club’s manager. “I’m sure the rings had something to do with it.”

Midnight Shift is one of many local companies that may have slipped under the IOC’s radar screen. While the IOC aggressively prevents non-sponsors from using the word “Olympics” or its five-ring logo in advertising campaigns, many local businesses are ignoring the copyright.

Even the most unlikely businesses are taking advantage of the added potential business.

The Illustrated Man tattoo parlor has a sign posted inside that claims it’s the official tattooist of the Olympic Games. While the IOC has no official tattooist, the Illustrated Man has done at least 25 tattoos of the Olympic rings. A store employee said athletes from the U.S., Italy and Hungary had been among those wanting a permanent reminder of their Olympic experience.

SPRINTER ON THE ROCKS

The latest candidate for bizarre photograph of the Games appeared Thursday in the Age of Melbourne. It showed Nigerian sprinter Mary Onyali soaking her feet and legs.

What’s odd about that? Nothing, other than she was standing in a garbage bin that she’d filled with ice water.

AGGIE WITH A FULL QUIVER

U.S. archer Vic Wunderle, a silver medalist in the men’s individual competition, was a four-sport star at Texas A&M;, although moving up to the decathlon was never really an option.

At A&M;, Wunderle competed on the Aggies’ archery, rifle, pistol and fishing teams--while majoring in hunting and fishing.

No joke. According to biographical information released by the U.S. Olympic Committee, Wunderle, 24, of Mason, Ill., “attends Texas A&M; University, where he is studying Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences.”

SHOULDN’T BE HARD TO GET IN NOW

Most disappointed by Marie-Jose Perec’s flight from the Olympics were patrons of Club France, the official after-hours headquarters of the French Olympic Committee.

Caterers have promised a cocktail party for each time the French win a medal.

“We’re bracing ourselves for [the Perec race against Freeman],” the project manager for the catering service said last week.

“If [Perec] wins gold, we expect Club France to be overcrowded.”

--From reports by Grahame L. Jones, Bill Dwyre, Bill Plaschke, Mike Kupper, Randy Harvey and Times Wire Services.

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By the Numbers

14.6: Nielsen ratings for NBC’s Olympic coverage after six days.

19.6: Nielsen rating after six days of coverage of 1996 Atlanta Games.

2: Commercials NBC is adding each halh hour to reimburse advertisers for low ratings.

9: Number of points by which U.S. men’s basketball team beat Lithuania.

32: Narrowest margin of victory for Barcelona’s Dream Team.

22: Narrowest margin of victory for Atlanta’s U.S. Dream Team.