D Isere

VAL D'ISERE, France -- About this unlikely sighting of two Olympic skiers from Senegal, a coastal African nation as flat and hot as a pizza, it is best to begin with their respective endings in yesterday's downhill: One finished dead last, the other almost dead."

Snowstorms wipe out races at Olympic ski siteA World Cup super-G was canceled yesterday as the entire schedule of Olympic warm-ups at Val D'Isere, France, site of the 1992 Winter Olympics Alpine skiing events, was wiped out because of snowstorms.This winter's schedule of pre-Olympic races has not gone well for organizers. Poor visibility and snow had scratched downhills on Friday and Saturday.Pre-Olympic competitions at La Plagne were postponed because of safety concerns on the new bobsled run. A ski jumping competition at Courchevel last month was canceled when the platform had to be modified.

VAL D'ISERE, France -- One after another, the big names in skiing -- Marc Girardelli, Guenther Mader, Paul Accola and Hubert Strolz -- fell victim to the grim Face du Bellevarde in the men's downhill combined.That opened the way to victory for Italy's Josef Polig, a first-time Olympian who said he felt like a lottery winner.The final victim was Strolz, just 100 yards from repeating as the gold medalist in this event.Though he was 13th after the downhill portion on Monday, he took a big lead after the first run of the slalom yesterday.

The centerpiece of network coverage of the Winter Olympics tonight will be figure skating -- pairs long program.If this sounds like an evening of sedate entertainment with a sophisticated audience rendering polite applause and everyone playing kissy-face, you ain't been paying close attention lately, Bucko.The Albertville Games were less than 40 hours old yesterday when cries of horrible officiating were ringing through the Alps. Most wondered why it took so long.The complaints came from the freestyle skiing event, ballet division, and it isn't even a medal sport.

The women's downhill course, which knocked several skiers out of the Winter Olympics earlier this week, has been modified for today's downhill race.The treacherous Roc de Fer, designed like the men's downhill run at Val d'Isere by former Swiss Olympic champion Bernhard Russi, was changed slightly to improve safety.Workers shaved down the second of two jumps that had caused several spectacular crashes and ended the Olympics for Austrian Sabine Ginther and Canadian Lucie Laroche, among others.

ALBERTVILLE, France -- Now, it's Dan Jansen's Olympics. And Bonnie Blair's.Now, the stage belongs to a charismatic skier from Italy, an ebullient figure skater from Japan and a veteran cross country skier from Siberia.After 11 years of planning, six years of building, and four years of traumatic political change, the world's best skiers, skaters and sliders will assemble today for the 16th Olympic Winter Games.Framed by mountains, and transformed by the fall of a wall -- and an empire -- these Games already possess a place in history.

VAL D'ISERE, France -- They came pouring over the mountains from the nearby Italian border, traveling by car, bus and train: thousands of Italians waving signs, banners and 20-foot flags of red, white and green, their faces painted, their voices hoarse.They organized a sunrise march yesterday through the streets of this tiny resort, singing soccer songs, stomping their boots in the snow and waving their arms, making sure everyone in town knew this was the day.Finally, when it was time for the men's Olympic giant slalom, they gathered eight-deep along the finish line to cheer Alberto Tomba.

Next time you gripe about the hassle of going to work, think for a moment about the men and women of war-torn Sarajevo, who spent years traveling on streets where they were almost as likely to get shot as they were to make it to work on time.Rob Timm, news director at WHFS-FM (99.1), has. And his appreciation for the sort of effort it takes (and continues to take, even though a fragile peace seems to be holding) to operate a radio station under those conditions helps explain why WHFS has been trying to help its sister station in the Bosnian capital.

We probably should have skied back to our hotel here in Meribel, France. Instead, we went to Courchevel for dessert.It didn't seem to matter that it was already past 2:30 p.m., or that some lifts might soon be closing, or that we'd been schussing all day over terrain roughly the size of Liechtenstein on legs gone rubbery from exhaustion, or that the sheer size of this mega-resort known by the French as Les Trois Vallees (the Three Valleys) had already exposed my flawed navigation skills.Obviously, we'd forgotten that the area's 64,500 acres of skiable terrain, 200 interconnected chairlifts and 375 miles of marked Alpine pistes had moved even Sports Illustrated magazine to pronounce the Three Valleys "the largest ski area on Earth."

Angels' E. Santana agrees to 4-year, $30 million deal baseball Right-hander Ervin Santana and the Los Angeles Angels agreed to a four-year, $30 million contract yesterday, a day after their scheduled arbitration hearing was postponed. Santana's deal includes a $13 million club option for 2013 with a $1 million buyout. The 26-year-old is the youngest active major league pitcher with at least 50 wins. He rebounded from a sub-par season in 2007 to go 16-7 with a 3.49 ERA for the American League West champion Angels last year, striking out a career-high 214 in 219 innings with only 47 walks.