Winter Games

In case you've never heard of this place, it's press central for the biggest winter party of 1992 - the Winter Olympics. It is also the "official" site of the Games. But if you want to see the alpine skiing events, don't - repeat, don't - come to this town in the Savoie region of the French Alps. And, most assuredly, don't book a hotel room here. Head, instead, for Bourg-St. Maurice, a charming town within easy commuting distance of three major venues for downhill events: Val-d'Isere, Les Arcs and Tignes.

Every fourth February brings an extra day, and inevitably part of that extra day is used up lamenting why Johnny can't luge. Or bobsled. Or biath . . . well, whatever it is that they do in the biathlon. Leap Year means a 29th day in February and, usually, national wailing as America gets waxed yet again in the Winter Olympics. Occasionally, there are shining exceptions, the most recent the 1980 Games at Lake Placid, famed forever as the Miracle on Ice, U.S. amateur hockey players vanquishing those dastardly Soviet professionals.

The U.S. Ski Team announced yesterday that Bode Miller plans to race all five Alpine events at the Vancouver Olympics. Miller's first event will be the downhill on Feb. 13, and he'll also compete in the super-combi, super-G, giant slalom and slalom. A five-event schedule was not a given because Miller skipped summer training while he debated retirement and is still not in top shape after injuring his ankle during a team volleyball game in December. "I'm not so worried from the point of view of conditioning as much as I am that he hasn't had much time skiing, and the setups are still a challenge," men's coach Sasha Rearick told the Associated Press by phone from Park City, Utah, where the Americans are holding their pre-Olympic camp.

Daniel Pyne was in the midst of final exams at Drexel when the phone call came that promised to open up a whole new world for him, a call that certainly made all the late nights and early-mornings trudging to ice rinks with his goalie equipment worthwhile. The call came from Dave Debol, head coach of the U.S. Men's National University Team. "Congratulations," Debol said, "you're one of my two goalies. " "It was amazing when I got that call," said Pyne, a Drexel junior who turned 20 last week.

SO IT'S THE last day of ski jumping at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary and I'm walking around town in a light sweater. Office workers are eating lunch on park benches and sunning themselves. The only snow in the Alberta cow town has been trucked more than 50 miles from the foothills of the Canadian Rockies and packed onto the ski jump. It was melting as fast as the army of workers could put it down. It appeared Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards, a self-promoting Brit with the ski-jumping skills of Shrek, might be saved by a water landing.

Flyers assistant general manager Paul Holmgren yesterday was named to the same position with Team USA for the 2006 Winter Olympic Games in Turin, Italy. Team USA will hold its Olympic training camp Sept. 5-8 in Colorado Springs, Colo. Expect Flyers forward Mike Knuble, a member of Team USA at the recent IIHF world championship tournament, and goalie Robert Esche to receive invitations. The Olympics are scheduled for Feb. 10-26. Team USA general manager Don Waddell, general manager of the Atlanta Thrashers, made the announcement.

When gold medals are handed out at the 2002 Winter Games, the ceremony will take place on a plaza built and owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. TV cameras - and thus the eyes of the world - will have little choice but to linger on the church's nearby gothic Temple, bristling with spires, and on other buildings that make up the headquarters of a rapidly growing American-born faith that claims 11 million members worldwide. Though tainted by a bidding scandal, Salt Lake City's Winter Games will certainly focus much of the world's attention on a dynamic Mormon culture, which is why the media-savvy church is gearing up to capitalize on the opportunity.

Before the Olympic torch arrived in Atlanta last month, Hilary Grinker already had her sights on capturing the hills of Nagano, Japan, the site of the 1998 Winter Olympics. In February, Grinker, 31, and her colleagues at Educational Marketing Concepts in Wayne displaced a Japanese rival and secured the right to make the first IMAX film of the Olympic Games. IMAX films are designed to be shown on panoramic screens several stories tall. The 40-minute film, Olympic Glory, is scheduled to be released in early 1999.

No promises, but there could be a spectacular sight at today's official opening of the XVII Olympic Winter Games. No. Tonya and Nancy will not kiss and make up in a moose-drawn sleigh. Bigger than that. Northern Lights. "If the weather remains clear and dry," said Borre Holmeslet of the Northern Lights Observatory in Tromso, "there could be a possibility. " Even without such a natural wonder, this two-week sports and entertainment extravaganza will begin with snow trolls and Vikings; a good-sized herd of reindeer; folk dancers; air acrobats; a flame-bearing ski jumper; actress Liv Ullman; a thousand kids, and one king.

With the fanfare of an Olympic event, seventh- and eighth-grade students from around Chester County went to Great Valley High School Saturday to match their math skills in the ninth annual Mathcounts competition. More than 180 middle school students came with sharpened pencils and scratch paper to test their knowledge in written and oral exams. The "mathletes" had to compete against each other and the clock. For most of them, that wasn't a problem. Before one could say "square root," they had the answer at the tip of their pencils.