Lake Placid

YOU RECALL, no doubt, the piece here three Sundays ago about Ryan Harrigan, the 13-year-old soap-box car racer waiting to hear if he'll be selected for the next national level of training in luge - competitive sledding. But if someone asked what a columnist on amateur athletics in Howard County, Md., would never write about, luge would be right there. Ditto bobsledding. Today, meet Courtney Zgraggen, Ellicott City resident since August, Mount Hebron High School freshman, JV soccer goalkeeper, bobsled driver.

New Skipjacks coach Robbie Laird isn't quite ready to break camp in Lake Placid, N.Y., for the start of his career in the AHL."There are still a lot of things that could happen here," Laird said after his "rookie" team defeated the Montreal Canadiens' rookie squad 5-4, after getting a 2-2 tie on Monday. "[Washington coach] Terry [Murray] took 26 players with him on the trip and I expect to get some of those players back."The Capitals begin a three-game trip tonight in Hartford, Conn. After the game, they charter to Orlando, Fla., to face the Buffalo Sabres, before returning to the Capital Centre Saturday night for a grudge match with the Boston Bruins, who ousted them from the Stanley Sup playoffs in May.Meanwhile, Laird will remain in Lake Placid with a team of 24 players, most of whom should be on the Jacks' roster this season.

LAKE PLACID, N.Y. -- After successfully fighting bureaucratic indifference and a lack of funding, Iraqi skeleton slider Faisal Faisal found one condition impossible to overcome in his quest to become his country's first winter Olympian: snow. Faisal narrowly missed qualifying for the Games yesterday at the Challenge Cup in Konigssee, Germany, an event for athletes from smaller nations. Twenty-nine competitors from 20 countries vied for eight spots. After Saturday's two runs, Faisal was in 10th place.

LA PLAGNE, France -- Cammy Myler wasn't going to let a little thing like a stomach virus interrupt her quest for an Olympic medal.Myler, 23, of Lake Placid, N.Y., got only about 20 minutes of sleep last night after waking up with stomach problems. But she still turned in a combined time of 1:34.023 for two runs in the women's luge and stood in sixth place with two more runs to come tomorrow.Erica Terwillegar, 28, of Lake Placid, was in seventh place at 1:34.281 and Bonnie Warner, 29, of Mount Baldy, Calif.

Joseph Francis Douglass, a retired Social Security Administration claims examiner and Navy veteran of World War II, died Thursday of complications from Alzheimer's disease at Beechwood Assisted Living in Catonsville. He was 80. Mr. Douglass was born in Amesbury, Mass., and raised near Lake Placid, N.Y. He joined the Navy a few months after his 1941 graduation from Lake Placid High School. He served as a radioman and gunner on Kingfisher planes launched from the battleship USS South Dakota.

Help. I am trapped in the mixed zone, and I can't get out.I have just been shoved behind a riot barricade in a room beneath a gigantic speed skating oval so that I can shout questions at exhausted athletes who have just raced 40 mph for Olympic medals.And I am not alone. There are about 300 other reporters from around the world crammed into an area meant for 50. We are the United Nations of Sweat.The athletes move in front of us like sushi on a conveyor belt. Here a Dutch skater, there a Japanese and over there an American.

County seeks seniors to mentor children, teach skills for living The Anne Arundel County Department of Aging is seeking "volunteer grandparents" to work with children 15 to 20 hours a week. Activities will include mentoring, tutoring and giving advice on life skills, with extra attention for children in Head Start or special education, and those in shelters or family support centers. Other activities include reading stories, listening to children, working with puzzles, and helping children learn to feed themselves and set a table, and learn colors, numbers and the alphabet.

FROM JUST SOUTH of U.S. 29 and Route 32, here's an Olympic dream that's in its earliest scenes but has one of the more accidental starts you'll ever hear. Ryan Harrigan, a seventh-grader at Lime Kiln Middle School in Fulton who turns 13 on Thursday, races soapbox cars. He's good. So his father, Mike, was fishing the Internet for a suit of high-tech fabric that might clip .005 of a second off Ryan's best time in soapbox car racing when he stumbled onto what could become his older son's real sport - luge.

If you've been fascinated by the Robert Hanssen spy case, here's a vacation for you: Former CIA, FBI and KGB intelligence officers and spy catchers will divulge tricks of their trade to cruise- goers aboard the Regal Empress' SpyCruise through the Bahamas next spring. During the day, guests can attend lectures about wartime espionage, double agents and moles. There will also be demonstrations of actual spy equipment. In the evening, guests will be joined at dinner by former intelligence officers, who will talk about celebrated spy cases and the art of counterintelligence.

TCAH: Moses won't be Olympic bobsledder Former Olympic hurdles champion Edwin Moses will not be on the 1992 U.S. bobsled team.Moses, a two-time gold-medal winner in the Olympic 400-meter hurdles, skipped Thursday's U.S. Olympic bobsled push trials without an explanation to officials or teammates. He left Lake Placid and missed a last-chance trial yesterday in Lake Placid, N.Y.Moses, Los Angeles Raiders receiver Willie Gault and tight end Greg Harrell were edged out for Olympic berths in the team push event Monday.