| 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 |
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Dutch visitors toast their golden champ
By Stephen Speckman
Deseret News staff writer
WEST VALLEY CITY — Green and gold. There may be no two more revered colors for Dutch visitors in Utah for the 2002 Winter Games.
There's plenty of the green-colored Heineken beer bottles at the hospitality house for Dutch athletes and fans.
And the Dutch first got their taste of gold Saturday when long-track speedskater Jochem Uytdehaage stole the top spot in the men's 5,000 meters from American Derek Parra.
At the golf-course-clubhouse-turned-hospitality center for up to 400 Dutch speedskating fans, Uytdehaage's feat was shown on a big TV screen. As he finished, the place erupted in cheers and the music turned up. It's two floors of fun and food here.
At the front door, a couple of good-natured Dutch guys ask you if you're driving. If you are, you get a black wrist band, which means no Heineken for you — it's a Utah thing, they tell people.
Actually, it's part of the deal Heineken made with West Valley City to rent the clubhouse at West Ridge Golf Course for about $180,000.
Upstairs, they served a dish called "bitterballen" — little balls with meat in them. A Dutch cook working in a Philadelphia hotel was imported to the Beehive State. With a little help, the cook made 10,000 of the delicacies in about a week.
Inside the main room of Heineken's Holland House, fanaticism rules.
Grown men sport orange wigs with pigtails while the whole crowd bobs and hops to music piped in through loudspeakers or sung live by anyone with — or without — a voice.
In the world of athletics, the Netherlands are all about speedskating and little else. During the Games, the country has one snowboarder, two bobsled teams and one lucky short track skater who got to meet U.S. President George W. Bush.
When the Dutch lose at speedskating, it's a big deal.
When they win, it's everything . And Uytdehaage, they say, just hours after winning in Salt Lake, is already the country's newest national hero.
Even a silver medal by Renate Groenewold in the ladies' 3,000 Sunday prompted immediate plans for a celebration later in West Valley.
E-MAIL: sspeckman@desnews.com
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February 11, 2002
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