| Salt Lake City |
 |
 |
| GER |
12 |
16 |
7 |
35 |
 |
| USA |
10 |
13 |
11 |
34 |
|
| NOR |
11 |
7 |
6 |
24 |
|
| CAN |
6 |
3 |
8 |
17 |
|
| RUS |
6 |
6 |
4 |
16 |
|
| AUT |
2 |
4 |
10 |
16 |
|
| ITA |
4 |
4 |
4 |
12 |
|
| FRA |
4 |
5 |
2 |
11 |
|
| SUI |
3 |
2 |
6 |
11 |
|
| NED |
3 |
5 |
0 |
8 |
|
|
|
|
Good time to cruise Oly venues
By Lee Benson
Deseret News columnist
The Olympics are 100 days out, and you know what that means. That's right, a hundred straight stories about Olympic security.
A hundred days is practically nothing. Before we know it, people from places we cannot pronounce will be driving down I-15, trying to pronounce us.
I commemorated 100 days to go with a tour of the Olympic venues, starting in the early afternoon at the Snowbasin Ski Area above Ogden and finishing 200 miles and five hours later at the Olympic Park at Kimball Junction outside Park City. I can report that some of the venues still aren't in Opening Day shape, and absolutely nothing Olympic is going on yet. But there was a trade-off. I didn't get in a single traffic jam, and parking was terrific.
A hundred days from now, I couldn't go where I went yesterday without four background checks, CIA, FBI and Secret Service permission, a dozen parking permits and a last name of either Romney, Bush or Rogge.
As it was, I went everywhere I wanted to go without any hassle whatsoever, unless you count the security guard at Soldier Hollow who wanted to know what I was doing.
"Just looking around," I said.
"OK," he said.
So, here's my 100-days-out venue report.
If the Olympics started tomorrow . . . we'd be in trouble.
There are still a few finishing touches required, the most obvious one being snow. All of the mountain resorts at Park City, Deer Valley and Snowbasin have begun snow-making operations, but so far all they have to show are round blotches on about one percent of the mountain.
The most obvious race to finish is at Snowbasin, where four beautiful new log lodges are in the last frantic stages of being built at the resort base. When you drive into the parking lot at Snowbasin, you swear you made a wrong turn and drove into the pages of a ski magazine featuring brand-new lodges you couldn't afford to stay in.
At present, you can't enter the lodge without a hard hat. But the grandstand at the bottom of the Olympic downhill course is ready and waiting for spectators.
On the other side of Mount Ogden at the Ice Sheet, the curling venue is ready, as curlers like to say, to roll. The curling arena, as well as the hockey arenas at the E Center and The Peaks in Provo, could have held the Olympics yesterday. So could the Delta Center, a k a the Salt Lake Ice Center. Of the ice venues, only the Olympic Oval in Kearns is still unfinished, and it's close, with only a few construction cats lingering.
Also, there's a busted-up concrete barrier to the north of the oval that could use some attention before February.
If you've got a spare afternoon and half a tank of gas, a drive around and through the Olympic venues of the Wasatch Front can be quite a pleasant experience.
Not only can you avoid the hassles already referred to of people asking you why you're here and where you think you're going, but just by seeing all the grandstands and the Olympic markings, a kind of reality sets in. The Olympics really are coming, and a hundred days from now is really no time at all.
As proof, check out the scene at Snowbasin, where the construction crews are hustling around not only like people who are being paid overtime, but who are trying to get out of the way of downhill racers about to start the course.
Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.
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October 31, 2001
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