In the Aftermath, Grousing About the U.S.

By Daniel Benjamin

GUARDIAN OF OUR EXCELLENCE

What happened, America? The question has been on the lips of downcast viewers upset as the nation hovered around seventh in the overall medal standings, near such world powers as the Netherlands and Italy. The U.S. Olympic Committee is so worried that even before the Games were done, it appointed a blue-ribbon commission to look into the matter. The chairman? None other than Mr. Yankee himself, George Steinbrenner, well-known master of the art of eliciting top performances from athletes. Steinbrenner promptly swore to "tell it like it is."

Just how it really is may not satisfy the legendary Steinbrenner appetite for faultfinding. With six medals, America is well below the high-snow mark of twelve at both the 1932 and 1980 Lake Placid Games, but not far off the average haul of eight. Evidently, the quadrennial depression from national winter shortcomings is no more memorable than the average American luge run. Still, George vowed to slay the dragon of Olympic mediocrity: "We should go after ((excellence)) and spare no expense." So with baseball an exhibition sport this summer in Seoul, would Owner Steinbrenner donate an ace Yankee hurler during the pennant stretch for the sake of national glory? Sure -- "if the other owners did." Pause. Hmm. Well . . . "You wouldn't want to give up your star players. Maybe somebody from Triple A."

THE PRIZE EXHIBITION

At first, short-track skating looks less like a sport than a kung-fu gang war on ice, the combatants wielding giant switchblades with their feet. Skaters jostle and bump around the perpetual curves of the 111-meter loop, and when one loses a jot of control, three are likely to careen across the water- slickened ice. But as Olympic spectators have seen, short-track racing is an intricate sport, replete with complex strategies. Since up to six skaters start at once, it has the drama of a pack of competitors struggling cheek to cheek -- battle like it oughta be.

Watching the spandex figures balance gravity and centrifugal force as one set of skates slices within inches of another, spectators have found an appealing amount of danger. There is less of it than in aerial skiing, which is as much a sport as cliff diving in Acapulco, but much more than in that odd amalgam of shuffleboard and housecleaning called curling. In the current heat of demonstration sports, short-track skating seems worthiest to win normal- event status in 1992.

DEFECTS IN THE GAMES?

Did they come to play or stay? Disappearing athletes, dozens of them, from Communist countries underscored the fact that for some participants the Games can present a wholly unathletic set of opportunities. First the Rumanians: three speed skaters and a coach slipped away the night after opening ceremonies, before any of them competed. A few days later two Chinese speed skaters and a coach flew home, again before racing. Injuries, explained Chinese officials. Then there was the emigration of Soviets en masse from Calgary: 55 left prematurely, some of them ski jumpers returned to sender because, a Soviet official said, "as the competition was postponed, they could not participate anymore." Canadian immigration authorities ran a phone line for athletes who "needed help," but no applications for asylum were announced.

NET DEFICITS

The U.S. and Canadian hockey teams, with their scattering of N.H.L. pros, college players and European-league veterans, are scarcely amateur in the classic sense. But in Olympic play, even these hodgepodge squads are dinosaurs on ice. After the Americans' seventh-place finish and the Canadians' drubbing, 5-0, by the gold-bound Soviets, North American hockey officials were dismayed. Sighs Father David Bauer, patriarch of Team Canada: "If the American defense had only been better, it would have done so much for amateur hockey."

The future course, though, is dim. Money for permanent national teams is nowhere in sight. Nor are N.H.L. owners lining up to lend their Gretzkys to the national Olympic efforts. Right now, in fact, the owners reap far more than they sow, with more than 20 Olympic veterans about to enter their organizations. The hottest rumor: star Soviet Defensemen Vyacheslav Fetisov and Aleksei Kasatonov might join the New Jersey Devils, a sublime irony after years of Soviet state-paid shamateurism.

GOLD IN THE PURLIEUS

Athletic glamour and grandeur are often in the eye of local beholders. To U.S. viewers, no amount of informative programming will make the luge, bobsled and . Nordic combined more than curiosity-shop events -- a job only American medals would do. But fans in other countries had cause to rejoice in some non-prime- time, though historic, performances. East German Frank-Peter Roetsch was the first ever to capture both the 10-km and 20-km biathlons, a daunting standard for future ski shooters. Even more notably, Soviet Cross-Country Skier Raisa Smetanina tied for the most decorated competitor in the history of the Winter Games as she took a bronze in the 20 km, the record ninth medal of her four- Olympiad career. Even Britons, whose team failed to win a single medal, could take pride in a new national achievement. Just 47 1/2 meters short of Matti Nykanen's mark in the 90-meter ski jump, "Eddie the Eagle" Edwards' last-place 71-meter flutter meant he had flown three meters farther than any other Englishman. Ever.

With reporting by Barrett Seaman and Paul A. Witteman/Calgary