Cheap Seats

When’s the rubber match with Nancy?

Could it be … Tonya Harding at the Olympic ice skating venue?

No, the bad girl of the 1994 Games wasn’t really at the pairs finals.

It was Rubber Tonya who was in the company of a couple of Portland DJs, John Murphy and Dan Clark.

“We’re here because Tonya can’t be here,” said Murphy as he adjusted the cigarette propped into Rubber Tonya’s inflatable mouth. “She’s been banned from figure skating and she’s been banned from the Olympics. But we thought she should be represented in Nagano.

“We thought maybe we could find a country that will accept her,” Clark said. “She wanted to skate for Norway, but they refused.”

They said they broadcast their plan to bring Rubber Tonya to the Winter Olympics and that the real Tonya wasn’t real happy about it.

“She came out to the station the day before we left and threatened litigation,” Murphy said.

She, the doll that is, ended up being thrown onto the ice.

A hunger for his profession

As a high school football player in Hawaii, Fiamalu Penitani weighed about 280 pounds. Now, as a sumo wrestler known as Musashimaru, he weighs 440.

“I eat a lot,” Musashimaru said Friday on the eve of the Nagano Olympics, where he was to escort the U.S. delegation in the opening ceremony.

“I just eat, go to sleep, get up, go to training, come back, eat, go to sleep. No outings,” said the 6-foot-3 Musashimaru.

What does he eat?

“Anything in the way,” he said.

Grapple with this match

Christine Kalina, a U.S. citizen who graduated from Indiana State University, obliged the throng of Japanese photographers in Tokyo Tuesday and lifted her left hand for the cameras, showing off the diamond on her ring finger.

The flashbulbs went wild. Yes, it was true, the 5-foot-4, 26-year-old said: In September she plans to marry one of Japan’s most famous celebrities, the 6-foot-8, 484-pound sumo wrestling star Akebono.

For his part, Akebono joked that he hoped now that he was getting married he wouldn’t start putting on a few pounds. “From now on,” he said, “I will have to be careful not to get too fat.”

Team in jeopardy

The answer: They are named Oscar Henriquez and Manuel Barrios and Mark Johnson. And Rafael Medina, Derrek Lee and Steve Hoff. And Mike Villano, Joe Fontenot, Mick Pageler, Robert Stratton, Jesus Sanchez, A.J. Burnett, Fletcher Bates, Scott Comer, Jesus Martinez, Blaine Mull and Chris Clark.

The question: Who are the 17 players, only three of them with major league experience, a total of 28 games last season, who represent the return the Florida Marlins have received for Moises Alou, Kevin Brown, Robb Nen, Al Leiter, Dennis Cook, Devon White, Jeff Conine and Ed Vosberg.

The last word …

“What tiny team is this?” - Brazilian sports magazine, “Jornal dos Sports,” after Brazil’s two ties in the Gold Cup last week - and before a 1-0 loss to the United States.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo