Predictions

Cross-Country

Men: The balance of power might have shifted slightly to the east of Norway, but cross-country skiing remains a particularly hot Scandinavian specialty. At Lillehammer in 1994, people camped out--in the snow, in sub-zero weather--so as not to get caught in traffic on the way to the cross-country venue and risk missing their national heroes, Bjorn Daehlie, Vegard Ulvang and Thomas Alsgaard, among others.

If people are camping out at Soldier Hollow in Wasatch Mountain State Park south of Park City, they’ll probably be conversing in Swedish, for Sweden’s Per Elofsson looms as the skinny-ski star of these Games.

Elofsson, an up-and-comer four years ago at Nagano, has come all the way up. He won last season’s World Cup title handily--even though he had raced in only half of the 20 events. He won six of the 10 races he entered and was second in another. No other athlete won more than three races.

With that in mind, some are saying Elofsson will win three gold medals here, as many as five medals altogether, and that he may well set records in three events.

Observed Norwegian skier Frode Estil, “He’s simply the best cross-country athlete in both the short and long distances, and in both techniques [the classical slide-and-glide and freestyle skating].”

There is some question, though, how Elofsson will tolerate the thin air at Utah’s high elevation. He blacked out during a 1997 junior race, and he has no experience at Soldier Hollow, having skipped last season’s World Cup race there.

Supporters point out, however, that he is a tireless trainer and will be in shape for whatever Soldier Hollow has in store. In fact, they say, he skipped the race there last year so he could train for the World Championships, where he won the pursuit and the 15k classical.

Ulvang and Daehlie have retired, but Alsgaard, winner of three gold medals, is back for the Norwegians, in his third Olympics. He finished third in last season’s World Cup standings, right behind Spain’s Johann Muehlegg, a former German who won the 1999-2000 World Cup title and is a projected medalist here.

Also back is Italy’s veteran star, Silvio Fauner, winner of five Olympic medals and competing in the Games for the fourth time.

America’s chances? The usual answer, slim and none, has been altered slightly, to slim and remote.

There are no U.S. medals in sight, but that doesn’t mean there has been no progress. Two-time Olympian Justin Wadsworth, now 33, gave the U.S. its best cross-country result since 1984 when he finished eighth last season in a 30k World Cup freestyle race over this season’s Olympic course. Teammate Carl Swenson, a ’94 Olympian who took several seasons off while he raced mountain bikes, finished 16th in a sprint at last season’s Soldier Hollow World Cup race.

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Women: Italian icon Stefania Belmondo, with seven medals one of the most decorated of winter athletes, will be competing in the Games for the fifth time--she made her Olympic debut at Calgary in 1988--and she may even find her way back to the podium. But youth will be served, and Bente Skari of Norway appears poised to emerge as the new Nordic queen.

She won a bronze in the 5k classical at Nagano and a silver in the women’s relay, and since has won two World Cup titles, beating Belmondo on a tiebreaker in 1999, then successfully defending her title in 2000.

She was a close second last season to Russian Yulia Tchepalova, a Nagano gold medalist.

Skari, daughter of Odd Martinsen, an Olympian who won two medals for Norway in 1968 at Grenoble, France, specializes in the classical technique and is the favorite in the 10k classical.

Daehlie has lately been coaching her in the freestyle technique, however, and with improvement there, she also is projected as a medalist in the new 1.5k sprint and the combined pursuit race, in which a skier must use both styles.

Tchepalova leads a strong Russian entry, with Olympic medalists Larissa Lazutina and Olga Danilova figuring to add to their collections. Lazutina finished third in last season’s World Cup standings.

Katerina Neumannova, who won two medals for the Czech Republic at Nagano, will be in the medal hunt again.

Nina Kemppel, 31, saving some of her best for last, had her finest season last winter for the U.S. team and will become the first American woman cross-country skier to compete in four Olympics.

Skiing in the World Cup race at Soldier Hollow last winter, she finished 14th in the pursuit, her best international finish, a few weeks after finishing 16th in Switzerland.

She was severely disappointed at Nagano, where, because of illness resulting from overtraining, she finished 52nd in two races and dropped out of two others. That bitter experience prompted her to come back for one more Olympic appearance.

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Mike Kupper