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Date: Tue, 15 Feb 94 9:40:59 EST
From: clarinews@clarinet.com (Dave Barry)
Newsgroups: clari.feature.dave_barry
Copyright: 1993 by the Miami Herald, R
Subject: IN NORWAY, AND READY TO COVER ALL THAT'S TRULY IMPORTANT
Lines: 63
(This is the first of a series of Olympic bonus columns by Dave.)
LILLEHAMMER, Norway -- I have located Norway. It turns out
to be right next to, but different from, Sweden. Also I'm pretty
sure that Finland is around here someplace.
Getting here was not easy. My flight from New York to Oslo
sat on the ground at Kennedy Airport for THREE AND A HALF HOURS
while the pilot came up with a series of increasingly lame excuses
for the delay: He was waiting for connecting passengers; the dog
ate his flight plan; vandals had stolen the landing gear; etc. I
believe that the pilot was actually stalling because he didn't
know for sure where Norway was. I bet that, between announcements,
he and his flight crew were frantically thumbing through volume
"N" of the World Book Encyclopedia, looking for the Norway
section. ("Here it is! It's an inert gas!" "No, you idiot!
That's 'nitrogen'!")
But eventually they figured it out, and we took off and
found Norway, which is a darned good thing because the U.S.
bobsled team was on our flight. Most of the team members were
large, muscular individuals. You need to be big and strong for
this event, because at the beginning of the bobsled run you have
to push the sled hard and get it going very fast, and then, just
as the sled starts hurtling down the steep, icy, treacherous track
at speeds upwards of 80 mph, you have to -- in one smooth, fluid
motion -- let go of the sled and fall down.
At least that's what I would do. The team members,
however, actually get INTO the sled, where they are jammed
together in a tiny, uncomfortable space, very similar to the seat
I occupied during the 247-hour flight from New York to Oslo,
except without the beverage-cart service.
Speaking of which, I noted that one of the bobsled team
members had several rum drinks. I pointed this out to veteran
sportswriter Dave Kindred.
"It's OK," Kindred said. "He doesn't steer."
Anyway, we finally arrived in Norway. It is a Nordic
country, defined, technically, as "a country where they have a
funny little diagonal line going through the letter 'O.'" Not
counting reindeer and fish, Norway's population is very small. I
probably met most of the residents right at the airport, and they
all seem very nice. They also speak excellent English, a fact that
makes Norway seem quite foreign to me, inasmuch as I live in
Miami.
As for the country itself, if I were to describe it in one
word, that word would be "cold." There is snow all over the
place. I don't wish to be critical of the Olympic Committee, but
in my opinion, when you're planning a major event such as the
Winter Olympics, with people coming from all over the world, it
makes a lot more sense to hold it in a warmer climate, or during
the summer.
But that is water over the dam (or, as we say in Norway,
"Vatter uver da vatterholderbakker,,). We are here now, and we
are going to make the best of it. Besides, there are many exciting
stories to cover, including:
1. Tonya Harding.
2. The U.S. speed skaters, and what they think about Tonya
Harding.
3. Norway's emergence as a modern industrial nation, and
whether this is fair to Tonya Harding.
I plan to cover all these stories and more in the days
ahead. Unless this would require me to go outside.
(C) 1994 THE MIAMI HERALD
DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 94 15:07:08 EST
From: clarinews@clarinet.com (Dave Barry)
Newsgroups: clari.feature.dave_barry
Copyright: 1993 by the Miami Herald, R
Subject: In Norway, spunky and clinically insane are synonymous
Lines: 72
LILLEHAMMER, Norway -- We have had our first semi-tragedy
of the Winter Olympics. What happened was, a Norwegian ski jumper
named "Ole Gunnar Fidjestol" (or, as his friends call him, "Ole
Gunnar Fidjestol") was practicing for his part in the opening
ceremonies, wherein he was going to go off of a ski jump WHILE
HOLDING A FLAMING TORCH. Really. The idea was that he would land
safely and then light the Olympic flame, which serves as a
dramatic and inspirational reminder of what happens when oxygen
combines rapidly with torch fuel.
Unfortunately, during a practice a run, Ole -- perhaps you
have already heard about this -- was whacked in the knee by Tonya
Harding's bodyguard.
No, seriously, he crashed and hurt himself and had to go
to the hospital. Wouldn't you like to have been there when he
explained this accident to his insurance company? ("You did WHAT?
Carrying a WHAT??")
So anyway, Ole couldn't make the Flaming Torch Jump, and
the truly amazing thing is, THEY FOUND SOMEBODY ELSE WHO WAS
WILLING TO DO IT. That is the kind of spunky, by which I mean
clinically insane, people these Norwegians are.
No, really, the Norwegians are great. I do not wish to
generalize, but they are all ruddy-complexioned, helpful,
efficient and unfailingly polite. Also, they all appear to be 22
years old. I don't know what happens to old Norwegians. Perhaps
their reflexes slow down and they get trampled by moose.
There are a lot of moose here, even in the downtown
Lillehammer area. In fact, according to published reports that I
am not making up, the Norwegians spread wolf urine on the railroad
tracks to keep the moose away. This leads to the question: How do
you gather wolf urine? It would take an extremely spunky Norwegian
to do that. I bet that whenever flaming-torch-jumpers gather
together, they say, "Well, we may go off ski jumps holding
torches, but at least we don't collect urine from wolves. Those
guys are NUTS."
Here are some other Norway Facts:
FACT: The king of Norway is named "Harald."
FACT: The Norwegian unit of currency is the "krone"
(plural: "kroner") with one krone being equal to an amount of
money that no two Americans can agree on or figure out even with
the aid of calculators. On the 100-kroner note is a picture of a
woman; according to Sissel Karlsen, a 22-year-old Norwegian who
works in the press center, this woman was "the sister of a very
famous Norwegian writer.',
I asked Sissel how come the sister was on the currency, as
opposed to the famous writer.
"I don't know," she said.
Norway: Land Of Mystery.
FACT: There is a LOT of snow here. According to the
Olympic news agency, there is a record 132 centimeters on the
ground. (To get an idea how much snow this is, just remember this
simple formula: One centimeter equals 17 kroner.) There are large
snowbanks all over the place, especially in the Media Village,
where many members of the press are staying and attempting to walk
back to at night after drinking a local beverage called
"aquavit," which is made from alcohol, enriched uranium and wolf
urine. Nobody knows how many people have fallen into these
snowbanks, but my guess is that come August, when the snowbanks
finally melt, the landscape will be littered with frozen
journalists, who, upon exposure to the sun, will thaw out and
immediately file expense reports. That is the kind of
professionals we are.
In the other news: First lady Hillary Clinton is here to
meet the U.S. Olympic team and show off some lovely vacation homes
constructed by the Whitewater Development Corp. Also, do not quote
me on this, but I have been told by informed sources that the
actual Olympics per se have started. I will have more on this
important story if it involves Tonya Harding.
(C) 1994 THE MIAMI HERALD
DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 94 15:07:17 EST
From: clarinews@clarinet.com (Dave Barry)
Newsgroups: clari.feature.dave_barry
Copyright: 1993 by the Miami Herald, R
Subject: Fear reigns on the bobsled and luge runs
Lines: 82
(EDITOR'S NOTE: Due to technical difficulties, the
following column fails to mention Tonya Harding. We are working on
this and will correct it as soon as possible.)
LILLEHAMMER, Norway -- I will admit that I was scared.
My body was crammed uncomfortably inside the unforgiving,
spartan, cold-metal fuselage of a two-man Olympic bobsled. My
hands were clutching at two handles attached to ropes that were
supposed to steer this fiendish machine, which can reach speeds of
up to 90 mph as it hurtles down the bobsled-and-luge track, a
huge, menacing, surreal, snakelike sculpture of ice and concrete.
"Scared" is not really the word for how I felt. I was
terrified. Only one thing kept me from losing control and
screaming hysterically and peeing in my thermal underwear, and
that was the knowledge that this particular bobsled was not,
technically, hurtling down the bobsled run. It was sitting
motionless on a level surface next to the bobsled-storage shed. So
I was unlikely to crash. But I still didn't like it.
"Hey!" I said. "I'm stuck in here!"
"It's not real comfortable," agreed Greg Sebald, helping
me climb out. Greg is the driver of this bobsled. He's a 30-year-
old patent attorney from Minneapolis, but he's representing Greece
in the Olympics. He can do this because (a) His mother is Greek,
so he has dual citizenship; and (b) "Minneapolis" is a Greek
name (it means, "City with a Greek name").
Greg has been a bobsled driver for only two years. One day
he just decided to do it, so -- I am not making this up -- he
enrolled in bobsled-driving school, where he got a bobsled
license.
(I don't know what happens if you go down the bobsled run
without a license. Perhaps you get pulled over by the Bobsled
Police.)
Then he contacted the Greek Olympic Committee and arranged
to represent Greece, which is not a major world bobsled power.
Greg is driving a rental bobsled.
"We had to give them a damage deposit," he told me.
I asked him if he gets scared, going down the track.
"I'm scared every time," he said. "I'm especially
worried that, one of these days, I'm going to open my eyes."
You have to admire this attitude. I think we should all
root for Greg, and, if we have invented anything, we should hire
him to obtain the patent for us, once the Olympics are over,
assuming he survives.
Actually, I'm sure he'll do fine. The people I worry about
are the ones who compete in the luge event, which consists of
hurtling down the track at 80 miles per hour while lying backwards
on a "sled" that is about the size of a cafeteria tray.
My guide to this event was Dmitry Feld, a stocky, bearded
man who is a coach and public-relations person for the U.S. luge
team. He started luging as a youth in the Soviet Union, coming to
the United States in 1978. He is an extremely outgoing person who
seems to be close personal friends with everybody in the world. It
takes him forever to walk anywhere because people are constantly
stopping him to shake his hand, hug him, etc. Reindeer come out of
the woods to lick him. If alien life forms ever land here, their
first words will be "Yo! Dmitry!"
So anyway, during luge practice one day, Dmitry and I
stood at the bottom of the Olympic run while he explained the
sport to me.
"You steer with leg and shoulder," he was saying. "You
try to be as aerodynamically as possible. Here he comes now.
Look."
I turned toward the track and WHOOOOOOOSH this
thing went past, faster than you could say
"WHOOOOOOOSH," faster than you could see; all that registered
was a blue blur traveling at -- I am good at judging these things
-- the speed of light.
"Lord," I said.
"Yes," agreed Dmitry.
I cannot adequately describe to you how scary the luge
event looks. Let me just say this: At the end of the run, there is
a long section that slants steeply uphill, so the sleds can slow
down. Try to imagine the fastest sled ride that you ever had. The
luge people go five times as fast as that UPHILL.
I suggested to Dmitry that anybody who would do this had
to be a few utensils shy of a place setting. He shook his head.
"We are not crazy people," he said. "We are just crazy
people who wants to win Olympic medal."
Fair enough.
(C) 1994 THE MIAMI HERALD
DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 94 15:07:24 EST
From: clarinews@clarinet.com (Dave Barry)
Newsgroups: clari.feature.dave_barry
Copyright: 1993 by the Miami Herald, R
Subject: Norway's professional bench-icers did their job
Lines: 72
LILLEHAMMER, Norway -- In a moment, I will get to the
various Winter Olympic sporting events and how we in the news
media are not allowing them to be overshadowed by Tonya Harding.
But first, I want to tell you about the official opening ceremony,
which was a spectacular and dramatic event that I will remember at
least until my butt thaws out, which won't happen for a long, long
time. Twenty years from now, when I go in for a physical
examination, the doctor will say, "Mr. Barry, you seem to be
perfectly normal, except for the fact that your butt is minus 12
degrees Fahrenheit at the core."
The problem was that the ceremony was held in a stadium
where the spectators sat for three hours on concrete benches
covered with a thick layer of ice. My guess is that the Norwegians
put the ice there on purpose. They probably had professional
bench-icers working all night, because these people LOVE the cold.
Even when it's really, REALLY cold, so cold that we visiting
journalists are afraid to blink for fear that our eyes will freeze
shut and we will be unable to fill out our expense reports, the
Norwegians are walking around outdoors practically naked, happy as
clams.
Maybe it's their diet. It consists almost entirely of cold
food, mainly salmon, which seems to show up at every meal in
virtually every form, including ice cream, coffee, cigarettes,
etc. You know how in some hotels, the chambermaids leave you a
piece of chocolate? Well, the other day, the maids in the media
village here left -- I am not making this up -- little packets of
SALMON JERKY. This was in case you woke up at 2 a.m. thinking, as
so many people do, "Whoa, I have not consumed any salmon for SIX
HOURS!"
So as you can imagine, after being here for a while, a
person can develop a fearsome case of salmon breath, which is
difficult to get rid of inasmuch as the Norwegians probably use
salmon-flavored toothpaste. Thus, no matter how cold it is,
everybody is happier outdoors.
Everybody was certainly very happy at the opening
ceremony. One highlight, of course, was the arrival, via ski-
jumper, of the Olympic torch, which had spent the past few months
traveling around visiting various historic sites, holding press
conferences, signing endorsement deals, appearing on Letterman,
etc. The torch was impressive, but -- as is so often the case when
you finally see a famous torch in person -- it was not as tall as
I expected. For me, the most dramatic moment in the ceremonies was
when a whole bunch of Norwegians came skiing like lunatics down a
steep hill and, in mid-slope, turned somersaults WHILE CARRYING
FIDDLES. It was amazing. I'd like to see Somersault Fiddle Skiing
become a regular Olympic event. In fact, I think an effort should
be made to involve other instruments; I would pay a lot of money
to see the Piano Ski Jump.
But moving on to the Olympic games themselves: We here in
the U.S. news media are all SICK AND TIRED of the whole Tonya
Harding thing, and we are doing our level best not to let it
overshadow the athletic events. Some of us have even taken the
extreme step of actually talking to athletes other than Nancy
Kerrigan (Yes! There are some!).
"So," we ask these athletes. "What do YOU think of this
Tonya Harding thing?"
Also there has been a major new development on the wolf-
urine front. You may recall that in an earlier column I stated
that, according to reports published in a publication that shall
remain nameless (Sports Illustrated), the Norwegians were putting
wolf urine on the railroad tracks here to repel moose. Well, I
have here a Dallas Morning News report stating that (1) They are
NOT moose, they are elk; and (2) The Norwegians are NOT using wolf
urine to repel them. They are using salmon urine.
No, seriously, they claim they are not using any kind of
urine at all. I will continue to monitor this story and provide
you with updates as warranted. I also plan to look into published
reports here that the cheese slicer was invented by a Norwegian.
Don't thank me: I'm just trying to avoid doing my job.
(C) 1994 THE MIAMI HERALD
DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 94 15:07:33 EST
From: clarinews@clarinet.com (Dave Barry)
Newsgroups: clari.feature.dave_barry
Copyright: 1993 by the Miami Herald, R
Subject: Journalists wisely stay indoors to cover events at the winter olympics
Lines: 73
LILLEHAMMER, Norway -- Picture this: Thousands of
Norwegians are gathered outdoors at the base of a mountain on a
bright but bitterly cold morning. They are waiting for the
downhill skiing event. Many of them are standing on little mats
set in the snow. They have been standing here for hours, in the
cold. Normal people would be dead by now, but these are
Norwegians. They have eaten a hearty breakfast of cold salmon
slices topped with slices of cold salmon, and now they are out in
the frigid air, and they could not be happier.
There is a powerful public-address system, which is
blasting, at high volume, the song "Achy Breaky Heart," by Billy
Ray Cyrus. The Norwegians love this. They are bouncing up and down
on their mats in time to the music.
"Don't break my heart," Billy Ray is singing, "my achy
breaky heart ..." And thousands of bodies bounce joyously up and
down, Norwegians getting down and funky.
Meanwhile, way way waaaaaaay up on the top of the
mountain, crazy people are waiting. They are called "downhill
skiers," although this is not an accurate term, because the
"hill" is not really a hill at all, but what a normal person
would call a "cliff." These people are basically falling from a
tremendous height with skis attached to their feet. In a few
years, this event probably will evolve to the point where the
competitors no longer even bother with skis; they'll just climb to
the top of a 2,000-foot tower, and, one by one, they'll jump off
and see who can form his body into the most aerodynamic shape and
splat into the ground the fastest. This would be an extremely
popular Nordic sport.
But even with skis, the downhill is one of the most
dramatic Winter Olympic events, and many of us journalists are on
hand for the purpose of not looking directly at it. We leave that
to the Norwegians. What we do is watch the event on TV inside the
press building, which, by the way, is heated. That's right: We
journalists ride in buses for an hour to get to this event, and
then we watch it on TV. The reason for this is that, if we go
outside, we can see only the very last part of the run, plus we
could freeze to death with the sounds of Billy Ray Cyrus echoing
in our brains. So we wisely remain inside and stare at the TV,
following the progress of the competitors as they fall down the
cliff. Every now and then, when a competitor gets near the bottom,
we glance out the window, and in the distance we can see the skier
in the form of a colorful little dot hurtling down the side of the
mountain, causing the Norwegians to cheer and jump up and down on
their mats.
Perhaps you are asking yourself why, if we journalists are
just going to watch the event on TV anyway, we bother going all
the way out to the downhill course. Why not just stay back in the
main press center and watch it on TV from there? Or, better yet,
why not just stay home and watch it from the security of the
United States, which is also equipped with television and, as a
bonus, does not have the same basic climate as a tank of liquid
nitrogen? In fact, why not go to a REALLY warm place, such as
Tahiti, and cover the Winter Olympics from there?
The answer is: If we did that, we would not be able to
give you all these insights into the Norwegian culture. Here's one
I had yesterday: They don't just eat salmon here. They also eat
reindeer. I had a sector of reindeer for dinner, and it wasn't
bad. I would say it tasted kind of like salmon.
? WOLF-URINE UPDATE: This story just gets more and more
complicated. According to Hugin, the official newspaper of the
Olympic Games, the Norwegians ARE, in fact, using "chemically
produced wolf urine" to keep moose off the train tracks.
BONUS WOLF-URINE FACT: In the French version of the story,
"wolf urine" is translated -- I am not making this up -- as
"pipi de loup."
TONYA HARDING UPDATE: Under an agreement reached with the
U.S. Olympic Committee, Miss Harding will be allowed to compete in
the Men's Bobsled event.
(C) 1994 THE MIAMI HERALD
DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 94 13:15:12 EST
From: clarinews@clarinet.com (Dave Barry)
Newsgroups: clari.feature.dave_barry
Copyright: 1993 by the Miami Herald, R
Subject: Norwegian Super Bowl
Lines: 74
LILLEHAMMER, Norway -- I went to see cross country skiing,
an Olympic event that -- talk about your poor planning -- was held
OUTDOORS. This was very unfortunate, because the weather, in
defiance of the known laws of physics, has gotten even colder. You
have to walk very carefully for fear of tripping over body parts
that have fallen off of visiting journalists without their
noticing it. It is so cold that the Norwegians won't tell us the
real temperature; they are using a secret temperature code, called
"centigrade."
It was approximately 740 kilometers below zero when I
arrived at the cross country ski stadium, which was, needless to
say, jammed with thousands of happy Norwegians, bouncing up and
down, ringing cowbells, blowing horns and emitting cheerful puffs
of salmon breath into the frigid air. Some of them had been there
all night. They LOVE cross country skiing. This is a huge event
for them, very much like our Super Bowl, except that at the Super
Bowl, you can actually see the game.
This is not the case with cross country skiing. You do
catch a brief glimpse of the skiers at the start; they take off
one at a time, 30 seconds apart, wearing their aerodynamic Spider
Man outfits, while the crowd roars insanely. But the skiers
immediately ski OUT OF THE STADIUM. Just like that, they're GONE,
possibly to Sweden, and sometimes they don't come back for hours.
It's as if you were at a football game, and on the opening
kickoff, the player who caught the ball sprinted out the stadium
exit, with all the other players running right behind him, and you
spent the rest of the game ringing a cowbell and waiting for them
to come back.
Speaking of freezing to death: I have formulated an
alarming new theory as to why the Norwegians do not seem to notice
the cold: they are eating radioactive reindeer. Really. According
to the Norway Tribune, an English-language newspaper here, there
is still a lot of radioactive material that drifted over after the
Chernobyl nuclear accident, and it is showing up in the reindeer
meat, thus giving a whole new meaning to the famous song lyrics:
"And if you ever saw it,
"You would even say it glows."
And speaking of scary animals, there has been a:
MAJOR NEW DEVELOPMENT IN THE WOLF-URINE STORY
I have now been in contact with TWO high-level Norwegian
State Railways officials in regards to this fast-breaking story,
which is threatening to overshadow even -- Dare I say it? -- Tonya
Harding. According to a maintenance official named Knut Langballe,
the Norwegians are NOT, contrary to published reports, merely
using synthetic wolf urine to repel moose from their railroad
tracks; they are using a synthetic MIXTURE, which simulates wolf
urine, lynx urine and -- get ready -- WOLVERINE urine. I swear I
am not making this up. These people are truly on the cutting edge
of moose-repellent science.
Langballe did not reveal the exact chemical formula, which
is probably a Norwegian state secret. But he did state, for the
record, that "it smells really bad."
I can vouch for this. After I spoke with Langballe, a
photographer and I met in downtown Lillehammer with Arild Vollan,
information director for the state railways, who brought a small
plastic tube of moose repellent with him and let us actually sniff
it. All I can say is this: If we had dropped this stuff on
Baghdad, Saddam Hussein would be a distant memory today.
In addition to the moose repellent, Norwegian State
Railways tracks moose by helicopter and radios their locations to
Moose Command Central. Despite these efforts, more than 300 moose
have been hit by trains so far this winter, often causing
considerable damage to the locomotives.
"Also," stated Langballe, "the moose gets minced."
I don't wish to be an alarmist, but it seems to me that,
sooner or later, one of these locomotives is bound to ram at full
speed into one of these atomic reindeer, and the entire Nordic
region is going to be engulfed in a giant fireball. That's the bad
news. The good news is, we would be warmer.
(C) 1994 THE MIAMI HERALD
DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
Sist endret: 28. september 1998