Winter Games

The rough-and-tumble freestyle event of skicross is in for the 2010 Winter Olympics. Women's ski jumping will have to wait to be considered for 2014. The International Olympic Committee yesterday approved skicross - similar to snowboard cross - for the Vancouver Games, but rejected women's jumping and five other events. The IOC executive board also overhauled the process for selecting sports for future Summer Games, and partially lifted its freeze on payments to the international amateur boxing association to encourage reforms in judging and scoring.

The Winter Games in Turin are well under way, but some collectors are focusing on classic posters from the snowy fields of earlier Olympics - a time when skis were long and ice skaters wore more clothes. Vintage-poster connoisseurship presents some thorny problems. These days, colorful posters with interesting graphics are considered perfect for interiors, with countless framed reproductions of old travel and food designs available at decor stores. But in pretelevision days, posters were just outdoor advertisements, designed to last a few months, until a specific event or season was over.

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.

New York state and the province of Quebec have agreed to work on a joint bid to host a Winter Olympics. New York Gov. George Pataki announced the agreement yesterday to a joint session of the state Legislature. Which Olympics New York and Quebec will try to attract has yet to be determined. Venues around Lake Placid, site of the 1932 and '80 Winter Games, would be used, as would those near Montreal, officials said. Lake Placid and Montreal are about 140 miles apart. New York City is the United States' official candidate to host the 2012 Summer Olympics.

The leader of the United States Curling Association ought to live in a tiny north-woods town, where people slide rocks on ice because, hey, what else are you going to do on a Saturday night? It's surprising, then, to read on the red-white-blue letterhead of the national curling organization that its president, Peggy Hatch, resides not in Bemidji, Minn., but in Philadelphia. Center City no less, where, typically, the only sporting activities involving rocks and household implements are parking-spot disputes.

Even before last week's ruckus over the judging of the pairs figure skating, I had a problem with the Winter Olympics. I could never get past the obvious fact that most of these sports seem to have been created by bored Scandinavians with way too much time on their hands. Every four years, I sit down gamely and try to make sense of it all. I'm man enough to admit that for years I thought the Nordic combined was an intermarriage between a Swede and a Dane. And when I first heard about the "skeleton," I naturally assumed the event owed its name to the bony remains of the competitors at the bottom of the course.

The luge run at Utah Olympic Park is a fast one on which top sleds can exceed speeds of 85 m.p.h. Yesterday, a pair of American teams seemed to find extra speed while riding the wave of cheers and noise for the length of the course. For the second straight time in the Winter Olympics, sleds representing the United States took the silver and bronze medals in luge doubles. Mark Grimmette and Brian Martin captured the silver medal, and Chris Thorpe and Clay Ives took the bronze. That gave the United States 14 medals in the Salt Lake City Games - its highest total ever in a Winter Olympics, with nine days of competition still to come.

The February sweeps, which start today, will be as competitive as the United States vs. the Taliban. NBC will dominate with the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics starting Feb. 8, and for the most part, its competitors will respond feebly. Yet what could be the least suspenseful sweeps competition in memory could actually benefit viewers, breaking up the usual logjam of high-profile programming and resulting in fewer reruns through the remainder of the season. A combination of factors has NBC's rivals fearing 17 nights of extraordinary Olympics ratings.

The novelty of being the only girl on the ice has worn off for Penncrest senior Vicky Graham. Frequently the only female player on all-boys' teams while growing up, Graham has a poster on her bedroom wall of the United States Olympic hockey team, gold-medal winners at the Lake Placid Games in 1980. That U.S. success fueled many of Graham's dreams as she gathered her equipment to go from one practice to another. Graham, a 5-foot-3, 125-pound winger, would like to play for the U.S. women's ice hockey team in the Olympics someday.

Mario Lemieux is still on the mend and isn't ready yet to return to the Pittsburgh Penguins. That doesn't mean the Olympics are out. According to a source close to Lemieux who spoke yesterday on condition of anonymity, the Penguins' star is expected to reaffirm his intention of playing in the Olympics for Canada in Salt Lake City once he returns to practice, even though a hip injury and Oct. 29 hip surgery has sidelined him for all but three of...