At The Starting Gate

By Pico Iyer

The toddler in leopard-skin coat and hat stirred in his stroller. The Puerto Rican team hurriedly consulted as to how to wear their capes. A huge circle -- the whole town, it seemed -- formed in the street to greet the Olympic flame. And then planes colored the sky, bells tolled through a dream of a blue afternoon, the sun set behind the mountains amid a spangle of fireworks, and the opening ceremonies of the 16th Olympic Winter Games were officially under way.

As the athletes began parading past, chaperoned by rhyming verse in English and French, the rah-rah doggerel gave the presentation promenade something of the air of a Miss Universe contest (finding rhymes for "Latvia" and "Cypriot" must surely qualify as an Olympic-style suicide mission). During the ensuing pageantry, classical romanticism was offset with futuristic whimsy. The air of playful modernity, dreamed up by Philippe Decoufle, a 30- year-old high school dropout who talks of getting ideas while asleep, conjured up a Mademoiselle France who was fresh, lighthearted and a little bit spacy.

Yet among the pleasures of the day, the greatest perhaps were the unchoreographed wonders: the members of the Unified Team, from the famously ununified former Soviet Union, marching under the five-ring Olympic banner; the groups of athletes gleefully waving under the unfamiliar flags of Croatia, Lithuania and Latvia; the lonely skier from Senegal; and the ski-capped twosome from Bermuda, shuffling behind a man in blazer and (c-c-c-could it be?) eponymous shorts. Three days earlier, the show's dancers and clowns had been kids in duffel coats and anoraks, many of them threatening to strike on the grounds that their beds were too small, their salaries too measly and their rooms 90 minutes from the site. The site itself had been a mess of young workers brushing away puddles with brooms, like nothing so much as curling apprentices. Now, however, in the magic of the moment, all had been turned to gold.

Such lofty ruminations were a long way from the thoughts of the typical visitor as he swung around his 14th switchback in 10 minutes, in a bus that labored painfully up the mountain curves like a slaloming snail, its driver consulting a map as he lurched along on the two-hour trip from Albertville to such distant sites as Courchevel and Val d'Isere. Any time not spent in a bus in the days before the Games seemed to be spent in a line for a bus. And on the epic rides along treacherous, icy roads, the passenger could be forgiven for thinking himself a born luger and wondering which new Olympic events he could enter: free-style cursing, perhaps, or uphill climbing, or cheap skating (since a pair of tacos at the top of the mountains would set him back $16). When striking taxi drivers blocked the area's only highway for 10 hours one day, visitors had even more time to ponder the fact that a bob-sled here could travel 40 times faster than a bus.

Nonetheless, the mood in the Savoie was generally reserved and pragmatic. After the synchronized smiling and security scowls of Seoul at the last Olympic stop, there was an air last week of quiet confidence, of mountain self-containment. The absence of a center of action -- Albertville, nominal host of the Games, is a Bovaryville with a population smaller than that of Rockefeller Center in New York City -- tended to diffuse the sense of panic and excitement, as did the cold reality of 10 sites scattered across 620 sq. mi. of mountainside. These genuinely did seem the small-town Games, the Games of one-lane roads and gyms turned into press centers. True, the main street of Albertville had become a huge window display for such arcana as smiling M&M's on skis, a version of the Olympic mascot, Magique, made entirely of chocolates and other gadgets Olympiques. Billboards around town featured uplifting quotations from Andre Gide and Catullus, while discos offered such unlikely come-ons as "La Nuit du Single People." But for the most part, the Savoyards seemed unaffected by the world's sudden attentions, and by the nomadic pin traders spreading their wares along the street.

For the Olympic organizers, watching the preparations with breath held in apprehension, this was the calm before the blizzard. There were a few contretemps: some Russians complained about the lack of fax machines in the Olympic Village, and the official Chinese news agency announced that the accommodations here set new Olympic records for discomfort. The International Olympic Committee provoked mumbles with its sudden threat to introduce blood testing, which it just as quickly dropped. Even official brochures treated the athletes like errant children: "Moving from one Village to another is of course possible -- if not recommended -- provided official permission is granted."

In Brides-les-Bains (pop. 650), normally a thermal spa for obesity treatment, the Olympic Village was tucked into an authentic Alpine village, with one whole side of the main street fenced off -- even the town hall was behind bars -- so that it felt as if the hamlet itself were under house arrest. Ear-flapped gendarmerie stood in front of the cage, and one French woman biathlete complained that "you can't even take a tea bag in without being checked." But the competitors could at least enjoy a taste of the high life: they dined every night under crystal chandeliers in a beautifully restored resort hotel, with a fully functioning casino next door and Poltergeist III screened on their behalf. Others, around the mountains, were put up in Club Meds.

The media, outnumbering the athletes by only 7 to 2, were quite rightly a % little lower down. The press settled in the sulfurous industrial area of La Lechere (now a center for phlebology), and the TV crews a little higher up, in the picturesque village of Moutiers. Highest of all were the I.O.C. officers, delivering their pronouncements from the mountaintop and sheltered in the mink-coat, neon-snazzy resort of Courchevel, the St.-Tropez of snowfall.

Anyone who doubted that the Olympics represents a gathering of nations need only have listened to Leo Latino serenading diners in the Coyote Cafe Tex-Mex restaurant, or have seen the Abu Dhabi princes enjoying the attentions of a Brazilian waitress down the street, while Biancas and Andys swapped kisses in the Dakota Rock Bar. "The T-bone steak is with French fries and Mexican beans?" demanded a Nordic athlete of an Elvis-impersonating Frenchman, while the American at the next table, a drug tester, remarked wryly, "Yes, Ben Johnson really put doping on the map."

The real, unofficial master of ceremonies of the Games would naturally be the weather. One balmy day of 55 degreesF warmth gave way to huge chunks of snow, falling relentlessly for almost 24 hours and leaving a foot of the white stuff on Val d'Isere. The next day, however, dawned guiltless again. The Chinese delegation drank champagne and sang such favorites as Salute the World to ring in the Year of the Monkey. Visitors looked forward to hearing Beethoven's Ode to Joy, which would accompany every Unified Team gold. And the World Sugar Research Conference was taking place in the same mountains -- a non-Olympic event, to be sure, but one that captured perfectly the meaning of the Games: research and hard work in the service of sweetness.