Lipinski Won’t Rest On Laurels

Tara Lipinski, still glowing from her Olympic victory, will compete at the World Figure Skating Championships, beginning March 31 at Target Center.

The 15-year-old Lipinski earlier had refused to commit to the worlds, even though she is the defending champion. She later said she initially was noncommittal because she wanted the gold medal feeling to sink in and because she wanted to consult with her parents.

“I’ll take a few days off to regroup, then I’ll start training,” Lipinski said Sunday.

Her agent, Michael Burg, had raised the possibility that Lipinski would skip the World Championships, saying that it was a “legitimate question” as to whether the Olympic champion should risk the glitter of her Nagano title so quickly.

Losing so soon after her victory over Michelle Kwan at the Olympics could taint Lipinski’s newly won title.

“It’s nuts to have a World Championships after an Olympic Games,” Burg had said.

LeClair speaks out

It might be overstating to say John LeClair was thrilled to hear the news from Nagano. LeClair was pleased for his Philadelphia Flyers teammate, Petr Svoboda, who scored the gold-medal winning goal for the Czech Republic, but he would much rather have done that himself, for the USA.

Instead, LeClair was back in South Jersey, where his wife, Tina, was five days overdue with their second child. He remained unhappy with the way the Olympic tournament went for the sixth-place Americans, and with the image the team developed, largely because of reports of property damage in the Athletes’ Village.

“I don’t think we were the disgrace everyone said we were,” LeClair said. “Some things happened that were probably a mistake, but I know our room wasn’t wrecked.”

LeClair echoed a complaint by USA forward Doug Weight, who said the broken chair count included ones that had broken during the tournament, just from the weight of the players sitting in them. Several folding wooden chairs in the media village were broken that way.

“They’re making a big deal out of the chairs,” LeClair said. “I guess nobody believes us, but I had one break right under me. We certainly weren’t breaking them over each other’s backs or anything.”

Memorable quotes

“It was the biggest waste of time ever. We deserve to be out of it.” - Forward Keith Tkachuk after the U.S. hockey team lost 4-1 to the Czech Republic.

“I do not fly. I skate. And I think I did that well today.” - Dutch record-setting 10,000-meter speedskater Gianni Romme when asked if he was Superman.

“It’s tight quarters (in the Olympic Village), but I don’t mind. I rode on a bus for four years, sleeping by the engine to stay warm.” - Canada’s Theo Fleury, one of 125 NHL standouts from nine nations participating in the first Olympics to include pro hockey players.

“When I told him it was more than I deserved to get a call from the prime minister, he said, ‘Gold medals have that kind of right,”’ - Japanese speedskating gold medalist Hiroyasu Shimizu, on getting a telephone call from Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto.

“I knew we had a great team. I told everyone if we play as a group, we can win it all. Everyone laughed. Now we’re laughing.” - Defenseman Jiri Slegr of the Czech Republic hockey team, which defeated the U.S., Canada and Russia to win the gold medal.

Top this, Salt Lake City.

The Olympic Winter Games ended with Nagano passing the torch to Salt Lake City for the 19th Winter Games on Feb. 8-24, 2002.

It will be the first Winter Olympics in the United States since Lake Placid in 1980.

The Salt Lake Organizing Committee has been gearing for 2002 long before this. SLOC maintained an office in Nagano since October, and 42 staffers spent the last three weeks studying all aspects of running the Olympics from their Nagano counterparts.

“We’re seeing what works, and what doesn’t,” said Shelley Thomas, senior vice president of the SLOC. “Mostly, it’s what works in Nagano.”

The 2002 Olympic Village and Opening and Closing Ceremonies will be at the University of Utah’s Rice Stadium, which is undergoing renovation. All venues will be within a one-hour drive from the Olympic Village. Because Salt Lake City originally sought the 1998 Games - it lost a narrow vote to Nagano - construction is ahead of schedule.