But Who’s Counting?

Four years ago, in the afterglow of a record Winter Olympics that yielded 34 medals for the U.S. team in Salt Lake City, the staff of the U.S. Olympic Committee turned immediately to confront the future.

History has shown that a host nation typically suffers a decline of about 40% in the medal count at the next Olympics. That “post-host drop-off,” as experts call it, would send the U.S. team into the low 20s in the Turin Games, which begin Friday.

USOC officials decline now to predict how many medals the 211-member U.S. team will win at the Games, preferring the approach employed over the years by USOC Chairman Peter Ueberroth: under-promise and over-deliver.

“We don’t want to put a number on it and make it seem like that’s the only reason our team is there,” said Jim Scherr, USOC chief executive.

But make no mistake: The USOC is also still expecting big things.

“This organization understands what we’re in business to do, and supports it,” Steve Roush, the USOC’s chief of sports performance, said in a recent interview, referring to the drive for medals. “The dollars and the people needed to support it -- we have the full commitment of this organization, top to bottom: Get it done.”

The USOC studies previous world championship results, then directs special funding for those athletes identified as potential medalists. And in Turin, the USOC will institute special programs in a bid to boost medal chances, just as it did for the 2004 Athens Summer Games.

“Our goal is that the U.S. team has every chance to perform at its very highest level, does its very best and exemplifies sportsmanship and respect for all cultures and countries,” Ueberroth said.

At the same time, he said, “It’s my belief that we spend the least amount of money as it relates to our gross national product on developing our Olympic team than any of our competitors. The competition is going to be much tougher in the Olympic Games and the Winter Olympic Games every time they’re held. There are more countries and they are better funded; there are more athletes training for every medal.

“So the USOC can’t stand still.”

The 34 medals at Salt Lake City far exceeded the previous best U.S. showings: 13 medals won at Nagano in 1998 and Lillehammer in 1994. Still, planning for Turin began even as USOC staffers were packing up in Utah.

“We were all celebrating,” Roush said, but “we also realized we had raised the bar significantly.”

Success in Salt Lake City rested on a program the USOC called “podium.” Results in the years leading up to the 2002 Games were scrutinized for Americans with top-eight finishes; coaches and USOC staff were then asked what it would take to lift an athlete who had finished fourth or fifth up onto that stand.

A year before the 2002 Olympics, U.S. athletes won 14 medals at various winter sports world championships. But in that same 2000-01 winter season, U.S. athletes recorded a promising 47 top-eight finishes.

The USOC committed $33 million toward 2002 -- $15 million to the podium plan, on top of $18 million in what it then called “base funding” for U.S. winter sports programs.

The result: a record haul at the Games. Only Germany, with 38 medals, won more.

For Turin, USOC spending is up about 10%, to $36.5 million. Since Salt Lake City, the USOC has revamped its funding model, channeling more dollars directly to athletes and coaches instead of allocating a chunk of money to a sports federation -- on the theory that USOC dollars ought to go to athlete support, not a federation’s utility bill.

So how to spend the Turin budget?

A few weeks after the close of the Salt Lake Games, back at USOC headquarters in Colorado Springs, Roush and his staff sat down to search for opportunities where “our investment would be impactful.”

For instance, the Turin-bound U.S. women’s curling squad, based in Bemidji, Minn., traditionally had little or no money for international travel. The USOC and U.S. curling officials stepped in; last fall and winter, the squad traveled extensively, gaining valuable experience.

The women’s squad is ranked among the top teams in the world.

“The experience we’ve had to be able to compete against these tougher teams has helped us become stronger earlier, and helped us prepare,” said team captain Cassie Johnson.

Jennifer Rodriguez, the speedskater who finished fourth in the 3,000 meters at Nagano, won bronze in 2002 in the 1,000 and 1,500 and won the world sprint championship last year. “The biggest thing the USOC does for us is they give us money, monthly stipends,” she said.

Top athletes are eligible for monthly stipends of a few hundred dollars to a couple of thousand.

Declining to reveal the amount, Rodriguez said her stipend is not making her rich. But “it definitely allows me to be a full-time athlete,” she said. “I can’t imagine having to do this and be on the top of my game -- and work. It’s a very, very difficult thing to do.”

The U.S. heads to Turin off a 2004-05 season that produced 25 medals, fourth in the world, behind Norway (33), Germany (32) and Canada (27).

Germany produced the most top-eight finishes, 79, followed by the United States’ 66.

While 25 medals in Turin would be a better-than-average post-host drop-off, another USOC initiative -- the $1.4-million Turin Enhancement and Advantage Plan -- seeks to boost the total by providing athletes with extra support once they arrive.

The USOC has arranged for special “near-venue housing” in Turin for coaches, nutritionists and massage therapists; airlifted in thousands of pounds of weightlifting and fitness equipment; and commissioned fleets of vans and other vehicles. USOC staff has been on site in Turin since December, full time since mid-January.

“It’s about those little things that we can do to make a difference on the day of competition,” Roush said, adding that such attention to detail is the key to putting “more of those fourths through eighths on the podium.”

The proof? The year before the 2004 Games, U.S. summer-sports athletes won 80 medals at world championships. In Athens, where the U.S. team was buoyed by the special training facilities, Americans won 102 medals, topping the medal count.

“It’s always hard to predict when you go to a foreign country what’s going to happen,” Roush said. “But, honestly, we feel with our support and with the plans that have been developed together, jointly, with the [sports federations] and the USOC that we have put our athletes in the best position possible.”