Norway

WASHINGTON -- In a battle between the two top teams in women's soccer, an unlikely hero emerged for the U.S. national team.Making her international debut, substitute forward Tammy Pearman took advantage of a costly error by the Norwegian goaltender and scored the winning goal in the Americans' 2-1 sudden-death win over rival Norway in the U.S. Cup championship game at RFK Stadium yesterday.In the 92nd minute, defender Jenny Grubb kicked a long pass from midfield toward the goal. Norwegian goaltender Bente Norby, who had five saves and disrupted numerous U.S. scoring opportunities, came out to the top of the penalty box to catch Grubb's pass.

LILLEHAMMER, Norway -- Understand, Paul Hannes actually chose to camp out in the woods for a week in 20-below temperatures."I saved up vacation time for this," he said yesterday as happily as a senator on a boondoggle trip to the Caribbean.I was trapped. I had to ask him the question. There was just no way around it."Why are you doing this?" I asked the engineer from outside Oslo. "Tell me, please."A burly, fortyish man with wire-rim glasses, a precise manner and the customary apple-red cheeks, he looked at me as though it was the most ridiculous question ever posed.

HAMAR, Norway -- There will be an Elvis sighting today at the Winter Olympics.Elvis Stojko, an elfin skater who rides dirt bikes and practices the martial arts, is out for gold.The greatest men's figure skating contest begins with today's technical program. There are two Olympic champions, a world champion and an American champion in the field.And then, there is Stojko, the Canadian king who brings to the competition a powerhouse jumping combination -- the quadruple toe loop-triple toe loop.

LILLEHAMMER, Norway -- I ate a plate for lunch yesterday.You had a bowl of soup or a salad or maybe a bagel.I bought a sandwich at the Olympic deli and ate the plate it came on.A blue plate special, literally.I also ate half the sandwich, which was stale. The plate was better. It was the best darn plate I ever ate.Especially when I dipped it in sugar, giving new meaning to the phrase "dessert tray."No, I have not gone crackers up here in the cold, white north. I'm just doing the green thing: saving the environment, Olympic style.

COLLEGE PARK -- The sting of the memory has stayed with Mia Hamm.She recalls the disappointment she felt walking off the field after the U.S. women's soccer team's 1-0 loss to Norway in the World Cup semifinals in Sweden two months ago."It was a very difficult loss," Hamm said. "Our goal was to win the world championship, and we fell short on that. The hardest thing was coming off the field and seeing your friends and family, because those are people that you felt you let down. They had done so much for you, and they sacrificed so much to get over there."

OSLO, Norway (Reuters) -- The future of Norway's state alcohol monopoly, which charges sky-high prices that make drinkers grumble, has become a political headache for the Labor Party government as it eases the nation toward free trade in Europe.Voters of the tiny but influential Christian Democratic Party are appalled by the threat of cheap alcohol after the European Free Trade Association and the European Community join up in a vast free market Jan. 1, 1993.And the Christian Democrats have enough swing votes in parliament to keep EFTA-member Norway out of the so-called European Economic Area (EEA)

Q: Is anyone offering private accommodations for the 1994 Winter Olympics in Norway?A: The names of some groups representing owners of houses, apartments, cabins, villas and farms in Lillehammer, Norway, and the surrounding area are available from the Norwegian Tourist Board, 655 Third Ave., New York, N.Y. 10017, (212) 949-2333. Two representatives are in the United States: Passage Tours, 238 Commercial Blvd., Fort Lauderdale, Fla. 33308, (305) 776-7070; and the Synergy Group, 75 Holly Hill, Greenwich, Conn.

"I was born in a blizzard, a special out-of-season blizzard, the worst blizzard Oslo ever suffered. Family, home, circumstances, the country I lived in and the weather I was born in all conspired to make a skater of me."-- Sonja HenieOSLO, Norway -- She was the first to spin, the first to jump, the first to be crowned a figure skating ice queen.She wore jewels during practice and plumes during competition. She won her first Olympic gold medal at 15, and her third at 23.She dazzled Roosevelt.

Americans, notoriously vague about their own country's past, may be forgiven for not knowing that 2005 marks the centennial of Norway's obtained independence from Sweden. The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's latest program, devoted to eminent Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg, provides a good excuse to consult the history books. Norway, a not-terribly-willing partner in a union with Sweden for more than 90 years, experienced a surge of nationalism that, by 1905, seemed likely to end in war. A plebiscite in Norway on the issue of ending the union left little room for doubt about popular opinion: 368,208 in favor of ending the union, 184 opposed.

LILLEHAMMER, Norway -- It is a story that haunts a country, that haunts a man.Last Oct. 13, Ketil Ulvang, the oldest brother of a national sports hero, went out for a training run across a low mountain outside Kirkenes, 250 miles north of the Arctic Circle, eight miles from Russia.There was a chill wind followed by a blizzard. Ketil Ulvang never returned home and presumably was buried under the snow.Now, it is the eve of the Winter Olympics and Vegard Ulvang prepares to win a gold medal in the sport that defines the tradition of a country, the 50-kilometer cross country classical race.