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Show TTa ' PC ITPN StgSt County since 1880 K 2GB2 iirn n Jrfv ) kc pvpftwfi 500 40.3 2002 -",3 5& i it an i- 36 -. I.: .-' - ill dMi"- i T I ttV . U.S. MEDALS i - - Jill Bakken, Vonetta Flowers Women's Bobsleigh Sarah Hughes Women's Figure Skating Kellv Clark Women's Halfpipe, Snowboard Ross Powers Men's Halfpipe, Snowboard Jim Shea Men's Skeleton Tristan Gale Women's Skeleton Casey Fitzrandolph Men's 500m Speed Skating Chris Witty Women's 1000m Speed Skating Derek Parra - Men's 1500m Speed Skating Apolo Anton Ohno Men's 1500m Short Track Bode Miller Men's Combined, Alpine Skiing Bode Miller Men's Giant Slalom, Alpine Skiing Todd Hays, Randy Jones, Bill Schuffenhauer, Garrett Hines Four-man Bobsleigh Shannon Bahrke Women's Moguls Freestyle Travis Mayer Men's Moguls, Freestyle Joe Pack Men's Aerials, Freestyle USA Women's Ice Hockey Mark Grimmette, Brian Martin Doubles Luge Danny Kass Men's Halfpipe, Snowboard Lea Ann Parsley Women's Skeleton Derek Parra Men's 1500m Speed Skating Apolo Anton Ohno Men's 1000m Short Track 0 Brian Shimer, Mike Kohn, Doug Sharp, Dan Steele Four-Man Bobsleigh Michelle Kwan Women's Figure Skating Timothy Goebel Men's Figure Skating Chris Thorpe, Clay Ives Doubles Luge Jarret Thomas Men's Halfpipe, Snowboard Chris Klug Men's Parallel Giant Slalom, Snowboard Kip Carpenter Men's 500m Speed Skating Joey Cheek Men's 1000m Speed Skating Jennifer Rodriguez Women's 1000m Speed Skating Jennifer Rodriguez Women's 1500m Speed Skating Rusty Smith Men's 500m Short Track USA Men's Hockey - game in progress at press time. 3 SECTIONS 36 PAGES Business A-7 Classifieds B-8 Columns A-14 Crossword A-23 Editorial A-15 Events Calendar A-18 Letters to the Editor A-15 Legals B-11 Movies A-23 Professional Services B-6 Restaurant Guide B-8 Sports .B-1 Time to Time A-11 TV Listings B-7 Weather B-2 UoSo bolbsleddeirs Smsh fahy tale Pilots Hays and Shimer claim country's first medals since 1956 By TIM SULLIVAN Of the Record staff Things were unraveling at the Utah Olympic Park on the Games' last day collapsing banners, ankle-deep ankle-deep mud and broken buses but for the U.S. men's bobsled team, it all came together. The U.S. men broke a 46-year Olympic podium drought Saturday by winning not one but two medals in the four-man bobsled, the park's final event of the Games. The USA-1 sled, piloted by Todd Hays, garnered gar-nered silver and USA-2, driven by five-time Olympian Brian Shimer, finished right behind for the bronze. It was the second day of the contest, whose four runs, split between Friday and Saturday, saw a topsyturvy topsy-turvy struggle for the top three spots. While Hays finished fin-ished the first two runs, or 'heats,' in first place, the gold medal was eventually claimed by the German-1 sled piloted by Andre Lange. But even though they didn't win the race, the U.S. bobsledders put almost five decades of frustration behind them. Shimer the 39 year old from Naples, Fla., was perhaps per-haps the most frustrated, having missed medals in past Games by hundredths of seconds. He had declared this race his career finale. Unlike Hays, Shimer was out of the top three after Friday, standing in fifth place. But a solid first run Saturday put him in fourth. At the top of the course, preparing for his last run, Shimer said he told his crew 'Let's roll, this is the push for our lives.' Shimer drove to a 47.23-second run, the fastest of the heat. It put him and his crew in the lead until Hays managed to hold on to overtake his teammate. As the last heat came to a close. Hays, in the lead and Shimer, in second, watched Swiss pilot Martin Annen, driving the second-to-last sled, fail to catch them. That guaranteed the U.S. two medals, and the eight men standing at the side of the track went nuts, jumping across the ice into the arms of fans and relatives, rela-tives, hooting, hugging and hollering out above the cheers of the crowd. For Shimer, the fairy tale cliche was applicable. "It's a fairy tale ending for me," he said. "I can't think of a better way to end my career." Hays, 32, from Del Rio, Texas, who, unlike Shimer, IS SCOTT SiHEJPARK RECORD Both U.S. sleds managed to capture medals in the four-man bobsled event, which concluded Saturday. The bronze medal was the grand finale of five-time Olympian Brian Shimer's career. was considered a favorite in the race, appeared to be more happy for Shimer than himself. "If Shimer's medal wasn't storybook I dont know what is," Hays said. "I'm so proud to be a member of this team." Hays' crew, comprised of Garrett Hines, Randy Jones and Bill Schuffenhauer (who filled in for Pavle Javonovich, banned from bobsledding after a positive drug test), was equally ecstatic, as were Shimer's pushers, push-ers, Mike Kohn, Dan Steele and Doug Sharp. "This is a dream come true," said Sharp. "I actually actual-ly dreamt a year ago that we'd win bronze." Jones and Hines were the first African-Americans to win Winter Games medals. "It's not going to hit me until I hear it on the news," Jones said. "But it's an honor. When Vonetta Flowers, women's' bobsled gold medalist and African American won, I wanted to race that night." Others reflected upon the decades of, as Shimer said, "ups and downs and mostly downs" for the U.S. bobsledders. Shimer gave Hays much of the credit for bringing U.S. bobsledding back. "He took the U.S. program to another level," Shimer said, "and we had to follow." "In the last four years they cleaned up the turmoil," said Sharp. "They got rid of people they should'vc gotten rid of." Of course, the fact that Lange and his crew beat Hays by three tenths of a second was a wry ending for the Americans' fairy tale. The Germans, who have dominated bobsledding for many years, have been Please see U.S., A-2 Men's slalom: only the strong survive Miller falls, Baxter gives Great Britain first ever alpine medal By PATRICK CONNORS Of the Record staff Sometimes in ski racing, just finishing with the fewest mistakes is good enough. Such was the case at the men's slalom at Deer Valley Saturday where deep ruts, unstable snow and precipitous fallaway turns made it nearly impossible for athletes to ski without a few slip-ups. "It was a battle," said Chip Knight who finished in 12th place the best result of the day for a skier from the United States. It was the French and a Scotsman with dyed-blue hair who came out on top of Saturday's struggle on the "Know You Don't" courseJean-Pierre Vidal took the gold medal, his teammate Sebastien Amiez finished second and Great Britain's Alain Baxter won bronze. Vidal claimed the first Olympic gold for France in men's slalom since Jean-Claude Killy did it in the 1968 Grenoble Games. However, the race had much deeper historical implications impli-cations for Great Britain, which before Baxter's bronze had never won a medal in alpine skiing. Although he's been training in Austria for the past few years, Baxter, 28, is on stranger to adverse snow conditions. He grew up skiing in the Scottish Highlands where wind-blown soggy snow is the norm. His parents, who are ski instructors in Scotland, introduced him to the sport at an early age and, at 15, Baxter left school to join the Scottish Ski Team. Growing up, Baxter said he was drawn to slalom skiers like Stenmark, Tomba and Girardelli. Every Sunday, he said, his family would huddle around the television and watch them race. On Saturday, Baxter combined the grace of Stenmark and the power of Tomba and Girardelli to get down a hill that 34 of his competitors could not finish. fin-ish. Although two American athletes finished in the top 15 and gained valuable World Cup points, (Park City's Eric Schlopy ended up in 14th place), Saturday was also a day of missed opportunities for the United States. Bode Miller, who was a gold-medal favorite in the slalom, had the second-best first run but three near falls on his final run dropped him out of medal contention. "It's about having fun, too, and I had fun today," said Miller who failed to win his third medal of the Games. - Til Rt JC 9 v STEPHEN ZUSYIPARK RECORD Bode Miller of Franconia, N.H., failed to win his third medal of the Games in the men's slalom on Saturday, but was well received in the finish area after bouncing back from three near crashes. The New Hampshire native took silver sil-ver in both the combined and giant slalom events. "He was definitely going for gold today," said head U.S. men's coach Jesse Hunt after the race. "It was a very small margin of error on that part of the course," said Miller about the point where he made his first mistake - an error that disrupted his rhythm throughout the rest of his run. Despite finishing in 25th place, Miller, who made a promise to himself earlier in the season to finish every slalom he entered, was greeted at the bottom of the course with enthusiastic cheers from the more than 14,000 spectators at Deer Valley. For Tom Rothrock, the youngest skier on the American squad, Saturday was a bit more frustrating. Rothrock started in the 34th position on his first run and, despite ruts and chatters that had become much more pronounced by the time he ran, the 23 year old managed to finish the run in 15th place. Rothrock was the first skier down the hill on his second sec-ond run, but even with a course that hadn't been rutted by other skiers, he was unable to finish. On the top section sec-tion of the course, he exited a flush with a line that was too straight to maintain. "I wanted to rip it," he said. Rothrock was the first of four skiers in a row to be thrown off the course on the second run. Hunt, w ho set the gates for the second course, said after the race that snow conditions dictated his gate placement. To avoid unstable areas of snow on the hill, he was forced to arrange the gates in a way that created more severe turns than he would have liked. For Schlopy, the slalom didnt turn out quite the way Please see French, A-2 For $81 million, UPCM is sold to developers Consortium likes the prospects of Flagstaff, Bonanza projects By JAY HAMBURGER Of the Record staff The stockholders of United Park City Mines, the descendent of Park City's mining heyday and the company credited with turning what had become an almost forgotten shanty town into a glitzy ski resort, have reached an agreement to sell the company to a consortium of real-estate developers. devel-opers. The $81.3 million deal, announced on Friday in a release from the mining company, sells up to 100 percent of UPCM's approximately 3.2 million shares to Capital Growth Partners for $25 per share. The stock was worth $21.94 - its 52-week high when the New York Stock Exchange closed on Friday. Wall Street valued the tightly held stock at $19 per share the day before. The Stock Exchange halted trading on UPCM for a few hours on Friday after the deal was announced. Representatives at Loeb Partners XL and Farley Capital, by far UPCM's two largest shareholders, share-holders, did not return phone calls seeking comment. The developers, known as Capital Growth Partners, are interested in UPCM's real-estate potential, including Flagstaff Mountain Resort and Bonanza Mountain Resort, upscale Deer Valley developments that the mining company has planned for years. Neither is built but each has received overall approvals from Park City and Wasatch County respectively. "We've lived here and hiked and biked and skied here for a long time. We're familiar with United Park's properties . . . ," Richard Dudley, a member of Capital Growth Partners and the group's spokesman, said on Friday. "We very much endorse the existing real-estate develop-Please develop-Please see Developers, A-2 $60RCOPY i |