HAKUBA, Japan -- The skiers were in the start house. The crowd was roaring at the bottom of the Happo'one slope. And around the world, a vast audience was assembled in front of television sets, ready to watch the Super Bowl of the Winter Olympics.
But the men's downhill -- due to be televised live to the United States last night -- was called on account of snow and fog.
The first crisis to hit the Nagano Games happened about the time they were handing out the first medals to athletes over at women's cross country.
A storm came roaring through this mountain wonderland on what was supposed to be the first full day of Olympic competition.
The weather, the wild card of any Winter Games, played tricks with organizers who had worked laboriously for years to craft the perfect Olympic schedule.
An early fog appeared to doom the opening day of the downhill, but it suddenly lifted, and forerunners came screeching down the run. But before the first official skier, Italian Luca Cattaneo, could open the race, the combination of light snow and fog postponed the start.
There's no telling when the downhill, the glamour event of the mountains, will come off since the weather forecast is questionable and race officials were uncertain when it could be fit into the schedule.
There were reports that a storm was due to dump more snow overnight, with gale-force winds of up to 100 mph.
Oh, and there was an avalanche advisory for the mountains overlooking Hakuba, a skiing village crammed with chalets, gas stations and a 7-Eleven.
Still, officials are confident that they'll get this race started,sometime. They've got 40 different scheduling combinations. And they can even lower the start, which would prove an ironic twist because Olympic organizers and ski federation officials bickered over the site of the start for years.
"There will be no problem postponing the race. We don't want to have an unfair race," said Gian Franco Kasper, secretary general of skiing's ruling body, FIS.
A half-hour after the postponement, the sun came out and the sky turned blue. But the decision to call the race was not questioned.
U.S. coach Bill Egan said: "The fog became a real problem. We could have handled the snow. But with the fog it was forming very rapidly. You could have somebody start the race and then get caught in the middle in the fog."
First-time U.S. Olympian Jason Rosener said he was disappointed by the postponement.
"I was prepared for this," said Rosener, of Breckenridge, Colo. "It's easier for some of the older guys who have been through this, but it's a part of our sport."
Weather wasn't the only problem for organizers who have to get fans and athletes to venues spread across a vast area in this mountainous region of central Japan.
Spectators were left waiting for hours or stranded yesterday as they tried to make their way into the mountains from the high-speed rail terminal in Nagano. A bus-an-hour schedule just didn't cut it with the fans who were trying to get to Olympic venues.
There were also complaints from some spectators about a lack of English signs and translators.
Those who managed to get to the hill had to be content with waving flags, tooting horns or slurping down freeze-dried noodle soup.
Some waved flags for their favorite racers, like American Tommy Moe, the reigning downhill champion, or Hermann Maier, leader of Austria's Wonder Team.
The opening snafus were worrisome, but the Games have not yet been plunged into a Lake Placid-style meltdown or an Atlanta disaster. At the 1980 Winter Games in the tiny New York village, transportation problems were so horrible, the National Guard had to be called out. The 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta were hampered by transportation chaos.
Still, there were some winter events that managed to actually come off, despite the snow.
Snowboarders, speed skaters and hockey players began their gold-medal quests.
But the first gold went to a mother of 2-year-old twins, Olga Danilova of Russia. With no previous international victories in eight years on the Russian team, she powered her way to victory in the women's 15-kilometer classical cross country race in Hakuba.
Danilova was supposed to be the second tier of the powerful Russian women's cross country team. Instead, she led the way, five seconds ahead of her teammate, Larissa Lazutina. Norwegian Anita Moen-Guidon was third.
Pub Date: 2/08/98
