Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 16, 1992 TAG: 9202160141
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: From Associated Press reports
DATELINE: ALBERTVILLE, FRANCE LENGTH: Long
A COUPLE OF NO-NAMES SURPRISE SILVER MEDALISTS
DAN JANSEN and Herschel Walker both flopped, but downhill skier Hilary Lindh and figure skater Paul Wylie came to America's rescue.\ From nowhere to Olympic heroes, figure skater Paul Wylie and downhill skier Hilary Lindh made the most improbable, delightful journeys by Americans so far in the Winter Olympics.
On a day when Dan Jansen and Herschel Walker both flopped - one at least staying up and the other sliding down - Wylie and Lindh sparkled in silver.
It could have been - perhaps should have been - even better.
Wylie skated the sweetest show Saturday night in the performance of his life to win the men's figure-skating silver. In the minds of many, he deserved the gold.
Wylie, a tiny, elfin acrobat on ice, skated cleanly in his second and last shot at the Winter Games before going to law school, but lost out in controversial judging to Ukrainian Viktor Petrenko.
Petrenko, a bronze medalist in 1988, fell on his second triple axel late in his free skate program after a rough landing near the start. He almost fell again on a single axel, but put his right hand to the ice to stay up.
Still, the judges gave him higher marks than Wylie for technical merit, and that boosted him to the top of the program. Petrenko, who impressed the judges with a triple axel-triple toe combination and several more difficult maneuvers than Wylie, also won the shorter original program on Thursday.
Czechoslovakia's Petr Barna, who hit the first clean quadruple jump in Olympic history, got the bronze medal.
However, gold or not, the night belonged to Wylie.
Young in looks and only 5 feet 4, the 27-year-old Harvard graduate came here as the old man on the United States figure skating team and the least likely medalist.
Suddenly, though, he transformed himself into a dazzling delight, whirling effortlessly and landing smoothly on triple axels and combinations.
Bringing back memories of Brian Boitano - the 1988 gold medalist who watched from the seats - Wylie leaped high off the ice to touch his toes with his fingers.
"His style was so good," Boitano said.
"Paul Wylie should have won the gold," said John Nicks, coach of two-time U.S. champion Christopher Bowman. "The winner of the men's gold medal had the worst performance since 1948."
Canada's Kurt Browning also said he felt Wylie skated the best program of the night. But neither Bowman, who finished fourth, nor Todd Eldredge, 10th, agreed.
"I'm not a judge. I know a lot about skating, but not about judging," Bowman said. "But they felt what Viktor had done was very difficult and very good."
Eldredge said they both skated well, and it could have gone either way.
"Petrenko has such great artistry and jumps," Eldredge said. "There's a lot of pressure on you out there, and I think [Petrenko] responded."
It wasn't only the big American crowd that gave Wylie a standing ovation. Virtually the entire crowd packing the arena stood and cheered him in the loudest, warmest response of the night. Moments later, they booed hard at the judges' low scoring on technical merit.
The silver gave the United States six medals, tying in one week the total by Americans in 1988. Still, it wasn't as much as they had hoped for.
Big names with grand plans for gold, Jansen and Walker, did not do so well. Jansen finished fourth in his 500-meter speed skating specialty - but he did not fall this time - and Walker wound up ninth midway through the two-man bobsled.
Only the surprise silver by Lindh in downhill skiing - six-hundredths of a second behind gold medalist Kerrin Lee-Gartner of Canada - salvaged the afternoon.
Lee-Gartner overcame falling snow and foggy conditions to complete the 1 3/4-mile run down the treacherous "Iron Rock" course in 1 minute, 52.55 seconds.
"My wedding was the biggest day of my life, but this is up there with it," Lee-Gartner said. "A friend of mine back in Calgary always said, `All or nothing,' and that's what I did."
Lindh, a 22-year-old from Juneau, Alaska, looked calm but insisted her insides were churning after winning America's first Olympic Alpine skiing medal since the five in Sarajevo in 1984.
"I don't think it's quite hit yet," she said. "You know, I've been thinking about this all week, what I was going to do, how I would react and everything. I've been picturing myself coming down, but I never really expected it.
"It didn't feel like that good a run, but it was good enough. I'm really psyched. I just can't believe it. I always dreamed about this and I can't believe it happened."
Neither skier showed any fear of the two bumps that caused several bone-breaking accidents during a week of practice.
Veronika Wallinger of Austria took the bronze, finishing ahead of the co-favorites - Petra Kronberger of Austria, the two-time World Cup overall champion, and World Cup downhill leader Katja Seizinger of Germany.
Germany still ruled the medals chart with 15, including six gold. Austria was second with 14 medals, and the Russian-led Unified Team was third with 13.
Despite their improvement, the Americans expected to be better than a sixth-place tie with Italy.
Jansen, the heartbreak kid of Calgary who fell in two races shortly after his sister died of leukemia, enjoyed only a brief moment of glory in his return to the Olympics.
Racing in the second of 22 pairs on a chilly, rainy afternoon, Jansen took the lead in 37.46 seconds. Dozens of his friends and relatives - some holding their breath, others cheering all the way - said they felt relief when he crossed the finish line still on his skates.
However, they and Jansen knew his time might not hold. Sure enough, in the next pairing, the gold slipped away when Japan's Junichi Inoue surprised everyone with a time of 37.26 seconds in his first year of international competition.