Predictions

Men

Halfpipe: Magnus Sterner of Sweden easily won last year’s World Cup title. But the U.S. team is extraordinarily solid. Tommy Czeschin, sixth in last year’s World Cup after blowing out a knee the year before, is one of the few riders who can execute three full spins in competition--that’s called a clean 1080. Ross Powers won bronze in Nagano. JJ Thomas won the recent X Games. And Danny Kass, only 19, is already being acclaimed in halfpipe circles as the next big thing.

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Parallel Giant Slalom: One of the Games’ most heartwarming stories is American Chris Klug; he underwent a liver transplant in July 2000, appears fully recovered and, on a course he loves in Park City, is a solid threat to take gold. But Canadian Jasey Jay Anderson has shown more consistency overall. And French teammates Nicholas Huet and Mathieu Bozzetto finished 1-2 in last year’s World Cup standings. Also tough is Dejan Kosir of Slovenia.

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Women

Halfpipe: The competition is wide open. Can American Shannon Dunn master a cutting-edge move in time for the Games? Stine Brun Kjeldaas of Norway won silver at Nagano and at the 2001 world championship. Nicola Pederzolli of Austria is the current World Cup points leader. Sabine Wehr-Hasler of Germany and Yoko Miyake of Japan are also eminently capable of taking a medal.

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Parallel Giant Slalom: Karine Ruby of France is the one to beat. She’s the current World Cup points leader, No. 2 in last year’s World Cup, 1998 gold medalist. The top U.S. medal hope appears to be Rosey Fletcher of Alaska, a 1998 Olympian. But it would be a great story for all of the Advil-popping, channel-clicking weekend warriors in their 30s and 40s should Idaho’s Sondra Van Ert make the podium; she’s 38 years old and in her second career as a racer. She competed for the U.S. ski team as an Alpine racer, quit in the mid-1980s, then spotted some kids on a snowboard in 1990 and thought it would be fun. In one of her high school yearbooks, classmates voted Van Ert “Most likely to go to the Olympics.”

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Alan Abrahamson