Americans never before have had such a love affair with snow and ice. Athletes or fans.
Never before had American athletes performed so well in a Winter Olympics. Never before had American sports fans so warmly embraced athletes from cold-weather sports.
As judged by the medal count, the 2002 U.S. team recorded its greatest all-around showing since Winter Olympics began in 1924.
Surpassing even the U.S. Olympic Committee’s daring pre-Games prediction of 20 medals, American athletes won a record 34 medals, 10 of them gold. But going beyond that most obvious measurement, American athletes in other sports recorded best-ever finishes before record-breaking crowds, and athletes from ethnic groups never before prominent in winter sports made these the Games of inclusion.
“As someone who has been involved all my adult life, I’m thrilled,” USOC President Sandy Baldwin said. “We created a very tight plan to get athletes to the podium. It’s an outstanding example of putting the dollars in the right place.”
The USOC’s investment of big money played a big role in the team’s success. The governing body of American Olympic sport pumped more than $40 million into support of U.S. teams and athletes in the four years leading up to the Salt Lake City Games. Of that, $18 million was paid out under the PODIUM program, designed to target athletes with medal potential.
Individual sport governing bodies also contributed sponsorship money so the travel, housing, technical and coaching support reached unprecedented levels. Some athletes said that put them on a level playing field with European competitors for the first time. As bonuses, USOC also promised payouts of $25,000 for gold medalists, $15,000 for silver and $10,000 for bronze. The era of pure amateurism is long gone, and financial support for athletes willing to put college studies, careers and families on hold until they peak in their mid-20s is critical. Such backing takes many forms. Businesses like Home Depot, so proud of its athletes that it put out a set of trading cards of U.S. athletes wearing its trademark orange aprons, hire athletes to work in stores but give them time off to train. Similarly, the Army World Class Athlete Program allows soldiers to train full time. WCAP athletes were represented in biathlon and bobsled.
Long-track speedskaters won a record eight medals, spread among six athletes, vindicating the pre-Games prediction by Fred Benjamin, the Chicago-based president of U.S. Speedskating, who said this would be the country’s finest performance in the sport.
“It’s fantastic,” Benjamin said. “For the first time we’ve had great sponsors, the best coaches and equipment. And our skaters are in the best shape they’ve ever been in. I think the home-field advantage is huge. It’s like you know every little corner in your house.”
The Utah Olympic Oval is regarded as the fastest ice rink in the world because it combines sophisticated ice-making techniques and high altitude. Many speedskaters moved to Salt Lake City or its suburbs a couple of years ago to adapt and train at the high-class facility.
Derek Parra, who won gold in the men’s 1,500 and silver in the 5,000, worked for Home Depot and trained here while his wife, Tiffany, and baby daughter, Mia, lived in Orlando.
“We’re like a professional team now,” Parra said. “It’s showing.”
Parra, 31, a former inline skater, is believed to be the first Hispanic to win a gold medal in the Winter Games. Teammate Jennifer Rodriguez, 25, of Miami, was the first U.S. Hispanic winter athlete in Nagano in 1998 and won two bronze medals here. Bobsledder Vonetta Flowers, 28, of Helena, Ala., became the first African-American to win a Winter Olympics gold medal.
With rare exceptions, American Winter Games athletes of the past have been white. Baldwin hopes this visible, tangible success can pay meaningful dividends in the future.
“It’s one of the things that shows the Olympic dream is for everyone,” she said. “It takes the Olympics to the kids in the city.”
The roots of American emphasis on upgrading performance date to the Olympic Overview Commission formed in 1988 and headed by New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner after the U.S. won only six medals in Calgary that year. The report jump-started a major commitment to improvement. The U.S. won 11 medals in 1992 and a then-record 13 in both 1994 and 1998.
Splashes were made in bobsled and luge, but the addition of new sports in which U.S. athletes excelled helped the medal count. Americans took three medals in skeleton, contested for the first time since 1948, scored in short-track speedskating, which debuted in 1992, and won five medals in snowboarding, added in the 1990s.
“I’m super proud of the way the athletes performed and super proud of the way the staff supported them,” U.S. snowboarding coach Peter Foley said. “We had some amazing chances going into 1998, and we [stunk]. You don’t know how it’s going to go on that day.”
One reason the U.S. scores big is facilities, he said.
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“We have the best halfpipes in the world,” Foley said. “Good halfpipes are hard to come by.”
Americans also showed improvement in events in which they did not win medals, recording best-ever finishes in men’s biathlon (13th), the men’s cross-country ski relay (fifth) and nordic combined (fourth). The nordic combined foursome had never been higher than seventh.
U.S. Ski Team nordic director Luke Bodensteiner was upbeat, saying: “This team is now among the best in the world in nordic sports. We’re knocking on that [medal] door.”
No American athlete has ever won a biathlon medal, but the 13th place in the 12.5-kilometer pursuit by Jay Hakkinen of Kasilof, Alaska, was the highest-ever U.S. finish. Jeremy Teela of Anchorage equaled the previous best, 14th place in the 20k. Biathlon has been building for eight years, recruiting young athletes into the sport as teenagers.
“We’re finally getting what we’re after,” development director Jerry Kokesh said. “For us as a program, it’s huge.”
Kokesh said the biathlon team has benefited greatly from in-kind sponsors such as clothing supplier L.L. Bean and Federal Cartridge of Minnesota, which provides hundreds of thousands of bullets. But the team is still running a $140,000 deficit this year and needs to find new sponsors as the athletes reach world-class level.
Soldier Hollow, Utah Olympic Park, the Utah Olympic Oval and other facilities overflowed with enthusiastic fans. Every day they came out to wave flags and root loudly. There were 14,000 people at biathlon, more than 13,000 at ski jumping, nearly that many at cross country. Often the home-field advantage made a deep impression on athletes.
“I almost had tears in my eyes at the start,” said Kikkan Randall of Anchorage, who made her Olympic debut in cross-country skiing.
The chants of “U-S-A!” were very much on the money.