You Don’t Need a Kilt to Appreciate It

SALT LAKE CITY —  It was going to be great. It was going to be Britain. It was going to be a news conference to discuss the medal-winning achievements of Great Britain’s Olympic team at these Salt Lake Winter Games.

It was going to happen in 15 minutes, we were informed via loudspeaker.

Five minutes later, the same loudspeaker announced that the news conference had been canceled.

Great Britain Olympic officials must not have been able to find their athlete.

Actually, that’s not totally accurate. Thursday, a plucky group of Scottish lasses brought home the women’s curling gold, Great Britain’s first Winter Olympics gold medal since 1984 and Torvill and Dean. But you know what they say about curling: It’s curling. Wasn’t an Olympic sport until 1998. Didn’t quite measure up to Torvill and Dean turning the Sarajevo ice into a steam bath, now did it? Broomsticks or “Bolero”--you make the

call.

But Alain Baxter winning the bronze in Saturday’s men’s slalom, that was something to get excited about. The British and Alpine skiing--they go together like Eddie the Eagle and ski jumping. Before Baxter, the Brits had never medaled in skiing. Oh-for-78 years, that was the extent of the great Britain drought. It would have been longer, but the Winter Olympics didn’t debut until 1924. For the British ski program, it has been all downhill from there.

Typical of the British, and their history with the sport, team officials nearly booted Baxter off the squad before his historic race. Reason: a bad hair day.

Baxter was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, lives in Aviemore, and can often be seen at the lodge wearing a kilt, causing Austrian skiers to nickname him “the Highlander.” Characteristically, he arrived Salt Lake with his hair dyed blue and white in the shape of the Cross of St. Andrew, the design on the Scottish flag.

The British Olympic Assn. considered the dye job a political statement--a violation of the International Olympic Committee charter--and threatened to remove Baxter from the ski team unless he got rid of the flag. Earlier in the Games, the BOA made the same demand of Baxter’s cousin, halfpiper Lesley McKenna, who was forced to remove the Scottish flag from her attire before she could compete.

Baxter complied and dyed out the white cross, maintaining his Olympic eligibility.

Even more surprising, he outskied Norway’s double-gold medalist Kjetil Andre Aamodt, all the Austrians and U.S. double-silver medalist Bode Miller, who fell once and missed a gate and eventually finished 25th.

A fitting finale for the U.S. Alpine team, which underachieved all U.S. competitors here, including Michelle Kwan. The American Alpiners, despite having Picabo Street and Daron Rahlves and Kristina Koznick and the home-slope advantage, won only two medals in Salt Lake.

On the bright side, both of them were won in stirring fashion by the charismatic Miller.

On the downside, that’s only one more Alpine medal than Great Britain won.

But let us not dwell on the negative. Besides, as you know, we’re a bobsledding nation.

The U.S. broke a 46-year medals drought in bobsled Saturday when its sleds won the silver and the bronze in the four-man competition. Compared to a 78-year drought, 46 years doesn’t sound like much. Canada has gone longer between hockey gold medals. But the four-man bobsled bronze medal won by the United States in 1956 is two years older than Prince Albert of Monaco, the Grand Old Man of the Bob, who nearly caused an international incident when his sled capsized Saturday.

Headline of the day:

Monaco’s Prince Overthrown;

Off With His Sled

But the Prince walked away from the crash, along with the other three members of his crew. For the record, the Royal Sled finished 28th, equaling the Prince’s four-man finish in Nagano. In three previous Olympics, in two-man and four-man bob, the Prince has never placed higher than 25th.

You might call him the official fantasy camper of the Winter Olympic Games, but that, of course, would be disrespectful. There are strict rules of decorum here. According to the Salt Lake 2002 information system, Monaco’s ace bobsled driver “should be referred to as ‘Prince Albert,’ ‘Prince Albert of Monaco,’ ‘The Prince of Monaco’ or ‘Sir.’ He should not be referred to in interviews or news stories by his given name ‘Albert Grimaldi.’”

Let me rephrase that earlier reference then.

Prince Albert of Monaco, the Grand Old Man of the Robert.