Albertville

STARTED TOO SOON:Heidi Zurbriggen, only now emerging from the giant shadow cast by brother Pirmin, was disqualifed from the women's combined downhill today.A jury ruled that the 25-year-old Swiss woman, who placed ninth in the run, had started too soon. Skiers are given three seconds of leeway either side of the assigned set-off time."It is too bad but there is nothing I can do about it," said Zurbriggen. "I was pleased with my run."Big brother Pirmin, the 1988 Olympic downhill champion and 1985 world gold medalist, retired after winning his fourth overall World Cup title in 1990, but will be present to cheer Heidi on for the downhill.

Alpine skiingMEN SlalomGold: Finn Christian Jagge, NorwaySilver: Alberto Tomba, ItalyBronze: Michael Tritscher, AustriaCombinedGold: Josef Polig, ItalySilver: Gianfranco Martin, ItalyBronze: Steve Locher, SwitzerlandDownhillGold: Patrick Ortlieb, AustriaSilver: Franck Piccard, FranceBronze: Guenther Mader, AustriaSuper-GGold: Kjetil Andre Aamodt, NorwaySilver: Marc Girardelli, LuxembourgBronze: Jan Einar Thorsen, NorwayGiant slalomGold: Alberto Tomba, ItalySilver:...

* A WYLIE SORT OF GUY: Last Saturday night, Paul Wylie surprisingly won the Olympic silver medal in men's figure skating. His life has not been the same since.The skating ended about 10:30 p.m. The medals ceremony and a news conference kept him occupied past midnight. Then he, his parents, his girlfriend and his sponsor commandeered a bistro here and celebrated until 3:45 a.m.Television people from CBS took him back to the International Broadcast Center in Moutiers, showed him tapes of his exciting 4 1/2 -minute freestyle program, put him on a late-night television wrap-up (it was 5:15 a.m. in Albertville)

ALBERTVILLE, France -- There was a ballet of bungee jumpers, an angel that pedaled across the sky, a wave that swept up an American vice president and a flag-bearer from Bermuda who wore shorts -- and goose bumps.And that was the stuff you could understand.Yesterday, in a temporary 30,000-seat amphitheater surrounded by gorgeous chunks of snow-capped Alpine peaks, the new world order met the New Age.The 16th Winter Olympics opened with a two-hour show that was Alice In Wonderland meets ice and snow.

Dawn Wylie Hiscock, sister of Olympic figure skater Paul Wylie, is going to Albertville, France, for the Winter Games, courtesy of the U.S. Postal Service.As part of a program called "Celebrate the Dream," the Postal Service is providing accommodation packages for up to two family members of U.S. athletes. Hiscock, a Baltimore resident, and her sister, Clare Patton of Littleton, Colo., will receive free lodging, meals and tickets to their brother's event."I wouldn't be able to do it otherwise," Hiscock said yesterday after a presentation of commemorative Olympic stamps at the post office on East Fayette Street.

MERIBEL, France -- The pressure is off, the self-doubt has disappeared. The queen of Alpine skiing finally has an Olympic gold medal to prove she's the best.Petra Kronberger slalomed through snow as thick as whipped cream to complete her victory in the women's combined. She was fastest Wednesday in the combined downhill, and protected her lead yesterday with two flawless slalom runs.Austrian teammate Anita Wachter won the silver medal, four years after winning the combined gold in Calgary, Alberta.

-- A good-luck visit by Vice President Dan Quayle to the Olympic athletes' village turned into a mob scene that shut out the local mayor and left some members of Quayle's entourage, including the U.S. ambassador, out in the cold.Quayle was swarmed by American and other athletes, and more reporters and security people than the French had counted on in the Olympic village cafeteria where he had lunch with U.S. Olympians."The Americans abused their rights," an angry Mayor Jean-Francois Chedal-Bornu said.

ALBERTVILLE, France -- She will sit in front of the television set that is positioned at the edge of the rink. She will listen to the music. She will listen to the crowd.Others will watch her daughter, the skater, and they will see this "Irish Katarina Witt," a charming, graceful performer whose elegance is matched only by her ability to jump with the lightness of a dancer.But Brenda Kerrigan must sit by this television set, must have her face pressed near the screen, and even then, all she will see are black dots, fuzzy images of a skater spinning and jumping.

An article in yesterday's sports section incorrectly listed the radio station for the "Pro Wrestling Talk" show. The program is on WITH.* The Sun regrets the error.The Winter Olympics are upon us. Coverage by CBS (channels 11, 9) begins tomorrow at 4 p.m. (practice in men's downhill and ski jumping), even before the opening ceremonies at 8 p.m.And if your network doesn't have the Games, you still must know folks are interested, right, John Buren?"I think there's a lot of interest in the female demographic [that's TV-ese for women]

ALBERTVILLE, France -- Most of them weren't around for the tragicomedy at Calgary four years ago, when the U.S. Winter Olympic team took its painful pratfall. Ryan "The Speck" Heckman was a middle-schooler in Steamboat Springs. John Aalberg was a Norwegian citizen. And Herschel Walker was a Dallas Cowboy. "I never even heard of a bobsled in high school," he said. "Now I'm on the Olympic team."More than three-quarters of the 181 American athletes who will ++ compete in the XVIth Winter Games beginning next week are newcomers.