Tuesday, February 19, 2002
Russians to launch ski protest
By STEVE SIMMONS, TERRY JONES, DIANA ZLOMISLIC, BRUCE GARRIOCH -- Sun Media
Just what the Olympics needs -- another protest.
But this time, it's the Russians protesting and the Canadians watching. The Russian delegation is preparing a protest on the scoring of aerial skier Olga Koroleva, who finished fourth behind Canadians Veronica Brenner and Deidra Dionne yesterday.
Koroleva, who was leading after the first jump was scored quite low, 90.72 on her second jump. The lowest score of the bunch came from John Buhler, the Canadian judge, who awarded a 6.0. The Russian judge, Valeri Zhukov, not surprisingly had the highest score, 6.8 for the same performance. Koroleva ended up with a total of 188.37, just behind Dionne's score of 189.26.
FLAG BEARER? If Beckie Scott wins another medal in cross-country, put her down as a possibility to carry the Canadian flag during the closing ceremony.
Scott has Canada's first Olympic medal in the sport -- a bronze in the five-kilometre pursuit. The previous best Canadian result at an Olympics in the event was 45th by Lucy Steel in Nagano in 1998.
Scott also finished sixth in the 10-kilometre classic. Canada has never finished higher in that event at an Olympics than Sharon Firth's 26th place at the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo. In addition to today's 1.5-kilometre sprint, Scott also will ski the lead leg for Canada in the relay event later this week.
mixed feelings: It was with pride and some mixed feelings that Peter Judge looked at the medal winners in the women's aerials event. At the previous Olympics, Judge served as Canada's head coach. Now he had the same position in Australia. When asked how he felt about seeing an Australian and two Canadians on the podium, he said: "You can't print a smirk, can you?"
record viewership: Generally it takes 21 days to form a habit but Canadians got into the routine of watching the Olympics in record numbers after little more than a week.
In the first nine days of the Winter Games at Salt Lake, CBC drew an average of 15% more viewers compared to Nagano in 1998. TSN, which has partnered with CBC to broadcast these Games, also is reaping the wealth of that relationship.
The Sports Network recorded a peak audience of 1,412,000 Sunday night during Shae-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz's figure skating free dance.
NBC's overall ratings are up 10% from the Nagano Games on CBS.
CANUCKS VENT: If you think the Canadian men's hockey team had a bad weekend, consider the poor schmo at a sports radio station who fielded the switchboard while the nation vented its anger.
The Team sports radio network, which has play-by-play coverage of men's Olympic hockey, fielded more than 2,000 phone calls and 1,000 e-mails after Wayne Gretzky's team lost 5-2 to Sweden Friday night.
On the tube, CBC drew an audience of 3,670,000 during Canada's 3-2 win Sunday against Germany. Viewership peaked in the first half-hour at 3,900,000.
APOLOGY: The Salt Lake Organizing Committee has apologized to Boston Herald reporter Steve Harris, who was roughed up by an overzealous cop while covering skiing. Harris was mistakenly directed to a secure area by two members of the SLOC when one of Salt Lake's finest grabbed him and said: "You're not going in there, boy." Harris filed a complaint and received an apology.
2002 Games News Coverage
