Tami And Toni Jameson

Team handball

Well, it is visually confusing. Tami and Toni Jameson are 28-year-old identical twins, teammates on the U.S. Olympic women’s team handball squad, hanging around together in the athletes village when they aren’t at practice or playing a game.

“There are double takes all the time,” Toni said. She understands. “We grew up (in St. Cloud, Minn.) with some other twins, Charlette and Charlene, and I can’t tell them apart.

“But people say, ‘How do you know who each other is?’ That’s like: How do I know who I am? Hey, how do you know who you are?”

Anyway, they are doubling their Olympic fun this time. For the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, Tami made the women’s team handball squad, but Toni was the last cut, sent back to the Olympic Training Center to watch the whole thing on TV.

But this time, they marched together into Atlanta’s Olympic stadium for the opening, holding hands all the way around the track. They are together constantly; certainly, they’ll be together for today’s U.S. game against Denmark.

Like so many American team handball players, the twins are ex-basketball players. They led St. Cloud State to the national tournament four straight years.

“We decided, right after ‘92, that we’d be around the sport until these Games,” Toni said. “We’ve been to Canada, Norway twice, Korea with the team. Nobody can expect us to win a gold medal, but we’ll do the best we can.”

Together.