Summit draws Olympians to Snowbird

Some 70 Winter Olympians and Olympic hopefuls will be in Utah next week to head to the summit — both in a literal and figurative manner.

The athletes will be participating in the U.S. Olympic Committee's Winter Sport Athlete Summit 2002, a four-day event of cross-sport workshops and activities where athletes share performance information, motivate each other and develop team spirit for the 2002 Winter Games.

Planned events include a hike to the mountain summit, a time-capsule activity, combined workouts, panel discussions, video presentations and speech from Olympic gold-medalist speedskater Dan Jansen.

The USOC's mission during the Summit 2002 session is to help the athletes train with colleagues, listen to inspiring presenters, learn how to overcome adversity and mentally visualize themselves on the medal podium during the 2002 Salt Lake City Games.

The 70-plus athletes gathering at Snowbird Resort from Wednesday to Saturday represent 10 of the 15 Olympic sports. The 10 sports are alpine skiing, bobsled, curling, figure skating, freestyle skiing, ice hockey (women's), luge, skeleton, snowboarding and speedskating.

Five former U.S. Olympic medalists — Paul Wylie (figure skating, silver in 1992), Cammi Granato (women's ice hockey, gold in 1998), Jack O'Callahan (men's ice hockey, gold in 1980), Park City's Nikki Stone (freestyle aerials, gold in 1998) and Diann Roffe Steinrotter (alpine skiing, gold in 1994) — have activities planned for Wednesday morning at Parkview Elementary School and the Gallivan Center in conjunction with the Summit 2002 conference.

This is the second in a series of three annual Summit 2002 events organized by the USOC. Last year's was at Deer Valley; a third is planned for 2001.