History

An odd assortment of cities bid for the 2006 Winter Olympics. The best known was Helsinki, Finland, which had hosted the 1952 Summer Olympics. The others were Klagenfurt, Austria; Poprad-Tatry, Slovakia; Sion, Switzerland; Zakopane, Poland; and Torino, Italy.

In English-speaking countries, Torino is much better known as Turin, famous for the controversial shroud that is believed by some to have been Jesus Christ's burial cloth. Within Italy, it is also known as the former home of Fiat.

But, under either name, it's not known anywhere as a ski resort. The selection of Torino/Turin, therefore, came as a surprise to many.

As has become routine at Winter Olympics, the actual sports venues were spread over a wide area. Competition took place at eight locations: Bardonecchia, Pinerolo, Pragelato, Cesana-Pariol, Cesana-San Sicario, Sauze d'Oulx, and Sestriere, as well as Turin. There were also training centers at: Claviere and Torre Pellice.

There were the usual worries that the sites wouldn't be ready in time. As the opening ceremony drew near, there were even bigger worries about ticket sales, which were lagging badly. But, like the construction, sales got caught up, too, and eventually surpassed the organizers' goal.

Turin set records for most nations participating, 84, and most athletes, 2,683. When it was all over, 26 countries had won at least one medal and 11 countries had won 10 or more medals, both records.

Results were mixed for the United States. U. S. athletes had won 34 medals in 2002, the most ever by far. But that had been in Salt Lake City. The host country almost always won more medals than could have been expected.

A decline was therefore likely. But Jim Scherr, chief of the U. S. Olympic Committee, announced well in advance, "Our goal is not to decline." And the U. S. Ski and Snowboard Federation adopted the slogan, "Best in the world in 2006."

The media, as usual, fastened on a few athletes as potential stars and greatly over-hyped them. Speed skater Chad Hedrick and Alpine skier Bode Miller were the most higly-touted. The most hyperbolic projections had Hedrick breaking Eric Heiden's record by winning six gold medals and Miller winning all five men's Alpine events.

As it turned out, Miller didn't medal at all. Hedrick did win three medals, one of each, but his accomplishment was largely overshadowed by his feud with Shani Davis, who became the first black athlete to win a gold medal at the Winter Olympics, in the 1000-meter speed skating event. He also won silver in the 1500-meter, where Hedrick won bronze.

Despite the failure of Miller and Hedrick to live up to overblown expectations, the U. S. team won 25 medals, its second highest total in history. In addition to the disappointments, there were surprises, such as Ted Ligety's gold medal in the Alpine combined and Julia Mancuso's victory in the giant slalom.

One of the big American stories was speed skater Joey Cheek. After winning the 500-meter event, he announced that he was donating his $25,000 gold medal bonus to a charitable organization, Right to Play, which had been founded by his speed skating idol, Johan Olav Koss of Norway. He challenged all Olympic sponsors to match the donation. When he won silver in the 1000-meter race, Cheek also donated that $15,000 bonus to the organization. By the time the Olympics ended, Right to Play had received pledges totaling $400,000 because of Cheek's generosity.

Leading up to the Games, the International Olympic Committee was concerned about the fact that Italian law calls for criminal penalties and possible prison sentences ranging from three months to three years for athletes and others guilty of doping. The IOC wanted the Italian government to suspend the laws for the duration of the Olympics. That didn't happen, but authorities said that they would leave drug testing to the IOC and that there would be no drug raids on the Olympic Village.

But there was a raid. Late on the night of Saturday, February 18, Italian police raided the lodgings of the Austrian ski teams, acting on a tap that former biathlon coach Walter Mayer was there. Mayer had been banished from the Olympics because of allegations of blood doping at Salt Lake City in 2002.

The police didn't find Mayer, but they confiscated 100 syringes and 30 packages of antidepressants and asthma medication. The IOC then ordered blood tests for 10 Austrian athletes.

In a bizarre turn, the fleeing Mayer was captured after trying to drive through a road block just inside the Austrian border, and he was taken to a psychiatric hospital. He later said that he had been trying to commit suicide by crashing into the road block. Two biathletes also fled and were kicked off the Austrian team. It didn't really matter, since both of them had completed their events without medaling.

The raid had no immediate consequences. No medals were taken away, no athletes suspended as a result. In fact, 1,200 athletes were test for doping in Turin and there was only one positive result: Russian biathlete Olga Pyleva was stripped of a silver medal.

At Salt Lake City in 2002, there were only 700 tests, and seven positive results. To the IOC, the difference meant that doping had become much less of a problem. To the cynical, it meant merely that methods of masking the use of forbidden substances had outstripped methods of testing for them.

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