Behind in the Count, Yanks Hit a Home Run

I remember sitting in a crowded conference room in Calgary, Canada, 14 years ago when the U.S. Olympic Committee announced it had appointed George Steinbrenner to whip our winter sports athletes into shape.

It was easy for skeptics among the media to make jokes about the Big Chinook. There seemed to be some similarities between Steinbrenner and the hot air blowing in to transform Calgary in February into a site more suited for the Spring Olympics.

Five Winter Olympics later, Steinbrenner still has critics within the movement who are offended by his commission’s subsequent 111-page report that declared winning medals should be the USOC’s primary goal. They believe that he should have placed more emphasis on the United States’ role in encouraging peace and friendship among nations through sports.

Of course, what they really believe is that someone besides Steinbrenner should have headed the commission.

But no matter what Baron Pierre de Coubertin (“The important thing in life is not victory, but the fight”) might have thought of Steinbrenner, you have to give him credit.

He identified a goal and set a path. It involved identifying good young athletes and financing not only their training but also their living expenses so that they could prolong their Olympic careers. Whether it’s Derek Jeter or Derek Parra, they need the same essentials in order to hone their skills.

The USOC has followed that path vigorously. In the last four years, the committee has

spent more than $40 million in athlete support while building its most experienced and most talented Winter Olympic team in 70 years.

The United States will win its 34th medal in today’s men’s ice hockey final, including perhaps as many as 11 golds, and finish second in the medal standings to Germany. The Americans won six in Calgary, two golds, and finished ninth.

Before we toss our Roots’ USA berets into the sky in celebration, we should point out the extenuating circumstances.

First of all, the Big Red Machine isn’t what it used to be. When competing as one country,

the former republics of the

Soviet Union dominated the Winter Olympics. When they separated, some believed they would win even more medals because they would have 12 times more competitors.

It hasn’t happened in the Winter Olympics. There is no longer enough government support to sustain excellence in sports that aren’t all that popular at home. Competing separately, they had won only 20 medals through Saturday. Russia had won 16, seven fewer than their goal. Only two other former republics, Estonia and Belarus, had won

any.

Another factor in the United States’ improvement that can’t be overlooked is the addition of so many new events to the Winter Olympic program. International Olympic Committee members aren’t hip, but they are hip to the extra dollars that U.S. networks will pay if U.S. athletes are winning medals.

Americans, dude, are good in snowboarding, freestyle skiing and skeleton.

Of the United States’ 34

medals, 16 are in events not included in the Winter Olympics in 1988.

Still, it is impressive that the United States won 18 medals in events that were on the program in Calgary. That would have placed them third in those medal standings behind the Soviet

Union and East Germany and

first among countries that still exist.

The Americans won medals in two sports in 1988, figure skating and speedskating. They won medals in all but four sports here--biathlon, curling, cross-country skiing and ski jumping. They even won two medals in men’s bobsled Saturday, a sport in which the United States had not won anything in 46 years.

The challenge now for the USOC is to build on--or at least maintain--the momentum it built here.

The next four years will not be as easy for U.S. winter athletes as the last four. They have been able to train at the Olympic venues more than athletes from other countries. Tristan Gale, a gold medalist in skeleton, said she knew the track here so well that she could slide down it blindfolded.

That became even more of an advantage after Sept. 11, when foreign athletes didn’t want to travel to the United States and American athletes didn’t want to travel abroad.

Once the Games began, U.S. athletes had another edge because of the home crowds.

They no doubt will be welcome in 2006 in Turin, Italy. But not this welcome.

Norway, a traditional winter power that slumped during the ‘70s and ‘80s, began building for the 1994 Games in Lillehammer seven years in advance. It finished third in the standings in Albertville, France, in 1992 with 20 and second at home in 1994 with 26. That success carried over to Nagano in 1998, when it again finished second with 25 medals, and Salt Lake City, where it had 22 medals through Saturday.

But Japan, which marshaled its efforts for Nagano in 1998 and was rewarded with a national record of 10 medals, has fallen to two here.

Which way will the United States go?

The most successful Winter Games for the United States have been at home--in 1932 at Lake Placid, in 1960 at Squaw Valley, 1980 at Lake Placid and 2002.

Americans didn’t do so well in subsequent Olympics overseas, but they didn’t have Steinbrenner’s plan. He might not have won the World Series last year, but he has beaten most of the world.

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Randy Harvey can be reached at randy.harvey@latimes.com.