Opening Ceremonies

For hard-core, meat-and-potatoes sports fans, the Olympics, summer or winter, are more staged than the kind of athletic competition they're used to, what with the spectacle of the opening and closing ceremonies, sports they hardly see and athletes they couldn't pick out of a lineup.And most Olympic television coverage, regardless of where the Games are staged, comes through the magic of videotape, which is antithetical to the live manner in which sports fans have been conditioned to expect their sports fix.That's why it was so disheartening during the first night of Nagano competition that bad weather at the men's downhill skiing race knocked out one of the only three scheduled activities that will be shown live in prime time, with Friday's opening ceremonies and the women's downhill on Friday this week being the others.

SYDNEY, Australia - The warm-up track next to the Olympic Stadium has seating large enough to accommodate just about any American meet outside of the U.S. trials or the Penn Relays. An informal meet was held there Thursday and Baltimore's James Carter won his heat of the 400-meter intermediate hurdles in an effortless 49.90 seconds. "I basically stopped pushing it with 150 meters to go," Carter said. "I jogged in." It was Carters second 400 hurdles race in his two weeks here after several months of seclusion and practice after the U.S. trials.

BARCELONA, Spain -- The longest, most punishing week of Ron Karnaugh's young life comes to an end on the world's stage today when he swims in the Olympic 200-meter individual medley. The race comes six days after Karnaugh's 60-year-old father, Peter, died of a heart attack during the opening ceremonies.Karnaugh, 26, from Maplewood, N.J., swims in a morning qualifying heat. If he qualifies with one of the eight fastest times, he will swim tonight in the final, on the last night of the Olympic swimming competition.

In this era of the glib and overly polished sportscaster, the guy who writes out and tosses off his best lines in hopes that television sports columnists will note his "spontaneity," NBC's Dick Enberg stands practically alone.Enberg, the network's lead football voice and nightly essayist during the Olympics, is that increasingly rare breed of sportscaster whose work consistently is of high quality. In the early days of these Games, Enberg, the best storyteller of his era, is up to his usual.

Days until opening ceremonies: 3.Snowfall: No new snow. Current blanket is 6.3 inches in Nagano city and 85 inches on men's downhill course.Update: Athletes and officials from 72 nations will take part in the upcoming games, making it the biggest winter Olympics. In the 1994 Lillehammer Games, 67 countries participated. The total number of athletes and officials will be announced this week.Going for the gold: Wayne Gretzky and Martin Brodeaur were nowhere in sight. Still, Olympic hockey teams clashed on Japanese ice in a warm-up for the Winter Games.

Baltimore police officers carrying torches will run through city streets Thursday to raise money and awareness for the Maryland Special Olympic games, which are scheduled to open Friday at the University of Maryland, College Park.The run will commence at 9 a.m. at Belair Road and Northern Parkway in Northeast Baltimore. Runners will head south to North Avenue and then west to Monroe Street. From there, they will run south to Washington Boulevard, ending up in Southwest Baltimore.It is part of a nationwide series of "torch runs" by law enforcement officers, who traditionally have promoted the Special Olympic games.

The Glenwood Middle School LEO Club recently held a bike drive to benefit Bikes for the World. The day was a great success, thanks to the many LEOs who participated, along with their advisers, Principal Dave Brown , the Glenwood Lions Club and the surrounding community. The day started out with Lions Pete Adams and Harrison Morson delivering 41 bikes (in two trips). Most of the bikes had been collected by LL Bean in Columbia during a promotional sale, and a few had been collected privately prior to the bike drive event.

It's opening ceremonies night at the Olympics -- and even that usually sedate prelude has a bit of drama surrounding it, since a lot of Nancy Kerrigan watchers will be craning to see whether she feels up to making the march behind the American flag. But there's also hockey on this opening day -- and, if you're not into the Olympics, a few diversions available on cable.* "The 1994 Winter Olympic Games." (8p.m.-11 p.m., 11:35 p.m.-12:30 a.m., WBAL, Channel 11) -- The very first thing we'll see in the CBS 1994 coverage of the Olympics, the opening ceremonies, is being televised on a 10-hour delayed basis -- the better to sell it as a "prime time" event from the very start.

In celebration of its 17th birthday, WIYY-FM (97.9) has chosen eight local rock bands to record a compact disc album, with Epic Records and Sheffield Studios.The disc is due for release at an Artist Showcase tentatively scheduled for the first week of April, fea- turing groups chosen in a competition last month. A specific date and location have not been named. Recording is currently taking place at Sheffield Studios in Phoenix.More than 200 tapes made the semifinals of the station's judging, says 98-Rock program director Russ Mottla.