Olympic Festival

The executive director of the U.S. Olympic Committee said that Maryland remains a viable candidate to host the U.S. Olympic Festival."You've got a lot of good sports people in that state, in the collegiate environment and the Olympic movement," Harvey Schiller said Friday from Colorado Springs, Colo. "You've also got good organizers and marketers who can move forward. It would be tremendous to have the events in the Baltimore-Washington area."Friday Mr. Schiller held his first conversation with state officials since the investigation into the Maryland State Games -- the body that created the bid to be festival host -- was disclosed.

ATLANTA -- Going into the final of the men's 400-meter hurdles last night at Olympic Stadium, Torrance Zellner said he wasn't thinking about what happened to him four years ago at the last U.S. Olympic trials in New Orleans. The false start he thought he had committed but wasn't called. The disappointing, sixth-place finish.Instead, the former Woodlawn High star was thinking about getting back here next month for the 1996 Olympics."To get this close, I really want to make it," Zellner said yesterday afternoon, relaxing in his hotel room.

Despite an impressive last-ditch effort, Maryland failed today to land a position as host of an Olympic Festival in 1994 or 1995.The U.S. Olympic Festival Committee in Dallas awarded the 1993 festival to San Antonio, the 1994 competition to St. Louis and the 1995 event to Denver. The 1996 Olympics are in Atlanta.The Olympic Festival, which will be held in Los Angeles this summer, involves competition in 37 sports in non-Olympic years.In addition to Baltimore, South Florida also lost out in the bidding.

Last July, Baltimore middleweight Dana Rucker put himself on the fast track to this summer's Olympic Games by winning the U.S. Olympic Festival gold medal in Colorado Springs, Colo.Rucker was supposed to return there for last week's U.S. Boxing Championships. Instead, he spent the week in his hometown, celebrating his son Hasan's sixth birthday and contemplating his own future.A future out of boxing.Rucker, 24, said yesterday that he has decided to retire from the sport he took up three years ago as a way to improve his skills as a kick-boxer and, perhaps, further his education.

The state of Maryland is resurrecting its bid for the U.S. Olympic Festival -- a bid whose future has been uncertain since the abolition of the Maryland State Games program.To do it, Gov. William Donald Schaefer gave the job yesterday to the state's Department of Economic and Employment Development. In turn, the department has enlisted a veteran trouble-shooter for Mr. Schaefer, J. Henry Butta, president of Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Co. of Maryland, to head a new team that will present the bid before the U.S. Olympic Festival Committee in Dallas on Jan. 31.If Maryland's bid is chosen, Mr. Butta has volunteered to tap volunteers from the private sector for an executive committee thatwould raise money for the event and run it. The University of Maryland also would play a key role in the event.

ST. LOUIS -- It has been pushed into the shadow of the World Cup soccer tournament, but the 10-day U.S. Olympic Festival opened yesterday with a schedule of 37 events that will take place in and around the St. Louis metropolitan area.The pre-Olympic competition features more than 3,000 athletes from throughout the United States, including more than 60 from Maryland. Many have previous experience in international competition, but most will be getting their first taste of competition in an Olympic-style setting.

All-Metro field hockey stars Peggy Boutilier, Julie Jakum, Lauren Volk and Kelly Naylor rank among the best locally, but next weekend they will discover how they compare to the nation's best high school players.At the United States Field Hockey Association's Futures National Tournament in Boston, the four will compete for spots in the Olympic Festival in San Antonio, July 22-29, or the Amateur Athletic Union's Junior Olympics in Knoxville, Tenn., Aug. 1-7.Those attending the Olympic Festival will join another Baltimore star -- Tricia Burdt, last fall's All-Metro Field Hockey Player of the Year.

ST. LOUIS -- Nancy Kerrigan has relinquished her amateur status and Tonya Harding has been banned from further competition, leaving Michelle Kwan to enjoy the calm after the storm of controversy that has engulfed women's figure skating for the past five months.The diminutive 13-year-old, who became the top-ranked amateur the United States when Harding was stripped of her 1994 U.S. Championship last week, traveled from her home in Torrance, Calif., to put on a brief exhibition yesterday at the St. Louis Arena.

All-Metro field hockey stars Peggy Boutilier, Julie Jakum, Lauren Volk and Kelly Naylor rank among the best locally, but next weekend they will discover how they compare to the nation's best high school players.At the United States Field Hockey Association's Futures National Tournament in Boston, the four will compete for spots in the Olympic Festival in San Antonio, July 22-29, or the AAU Junior Olympics in Knoxville, Tenn., Aug. 1-7.Any who make it to the Olympic Festival will join another Baltimore star -- Tricia Burdt, last fall's All-Metro Field Hockey Player of the Year.

Maryland moved one step closer yesterday to securing the rights to play host to the United States Olympic Festival in 1993, 1994 or 1995.Maryland was one of five bid finalists approved by the U.S. Olympic Committee's Executive Committee during its meeting yesterday in Durham, N.C. The USOC's Board of Directors is expected to approve the selections today.Denver, Miami, St. Louis and San Antonio also made the cut. Knocked out of the bid process were Cincinnati, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix and Portland, Ore.Members of the USOC's Olympic Festival Committee will visit each of the remaining applicant sites between Nov. 1 and Dec. 15. The final selections will be announced at a USOC meeting Feb. 2-3 in Dallas.

ATLANTA -- The board of directors of the United States Olympic Committee announced plans yesterday to eliminate its Olympic Festival and provide only bare-bones funding for sending teams to the World University Games.But Dr. LeRoy Walker, president of the USOC, said that the cost-cutting measures will by no means reduce his organization's commitment to develop future Olympians through grass-roots programs."We all agree that cities [running the Olympic Festival] can't afford to do 37 sports," said Walker, who wouldn't rule out the possibility of a scaled-down version of the Festival returning in the future.

BOULDER, Colo. -- Amy and Becky Brown have come a long way from the weekend outings and summer vacations that helped fuel their passion: whitewater kayaking.But first, light years before they arrived here for the U.S. Olympic Festival, back when they were growing up in Monkton, came the family thing."All of their lives we've been throwing them in boats," their mother, Barbara Brown, said recently.Then came the sister thing."At first I wanted to do it because Becky was," said Amy Brown, 18. "But then I started to enjoy it."

DENVER -- Some would call him undisciplined, others merely undaunted. Some college coaches backed away from Kevin Norris during his senior year at Lake Clifton High School, or merely forgot about him during his one season at Maine Central Institute.But Miami's Leonard Hamilton knew that Norris -- "Stink" to all his friends and relatives back in Baltimore -- could be just what the Hurricanes needed to help a team badly in need of a jump-start. All it would take was a little bit of adjustment.

ST. LOUIS -- No one is going to mistake this for the World Cup, but 21-year-old Randi Goldblatt doesn't seem to mind. The soccer competition at this year's U.S. Olympic Festival may draw hundreds instead of the thousands and never see the light of a network television camera, but the sport has never had a higher American profile.So what if all the attention is directed at today's second-round World Cup showdown between the United States and heavily favored Brazil."I think it's all relative to soccer," said Goldblatt, the all-time leading goal scorer in the history of the University of Maryland women's team.

ST. LOUIS -- Nancy Kerrigan has relinquished her amateur status and Tonya Harding has been banned from further competition, leaving Michelle Kwan to enjoy the calm after the storm of controversy that has engulfed women's figure skating for the past five months.The diminutive 13-year-old, who became the top-ranked amateur the United States when Harding was stripped of her 1994 U.S. Championship last week, traveled from her home in Torrance, Calif., to put on a brief exhibition yesterday at the St. Louis Arena.

ST. LOUIS -- It has been pushed into the shadow of the World Cup soccer tournament, but the 10-day U.S. Olympic Festival opened yesterday with a schedule of 37 events that will take place in and around the St. Louis metropolitan area.The pre-Olympic competition features more than 3,000 athletes from throughout the United States, including more than 60 from Maryland. Many have previous experience in international competition, but most will be getting their first taste of competition in an Olympic-style setting.

Maryland officials will learn this weekend whether they still are in the running to play host to the United States Olympic Festival in 1993, 1994 or 1995.The list of 10 bid cities will be cut to five or six at the United States Olympic Committee Board of Directors and Executive Committee meeting in Durham, N.C., today through Sunday."We're all in the same boat," said James Narron, head of the Maryland delegation. "No one bid gets a perfect 10 on all the facilities. Everyone has a good chance to advance."

Come September, Peggy Boutilier could finish her what-I-did-on-my-summer-vacation essay in three words -- "I played hockey."Then again, the Roland Park senior might want to elaborate on her trip to the United States Olympic Festival in San Antonio July 19-28.Sandwiched within a busy camp schedule, the Olympic Festival competition provides Boutilier, 18, with her highest level of experience yet. Boutilier and St. Paul's graduate Tricia Burdt were the only Baltimore-area girls selected to the Olympic Festival's four field hockey teams.

Throughout her illustrious high school athletic career at St. Paul's, Mount Airy resident Tricia Burdt was always a notch or two above her stiffest competition.She began playing varsity soccer in the eighth grade and added field hockey -- her No. 1 sport -- and lacrosse her freshman campaign. That year, she was an Association of Independent Schools All-Star in all three.When her soccer eligibility ran out after her junior year, she played basketball as a senior and earned AIS All-Star status.