| Salt Lake City |
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| GER |
12 |
16 |
7 |
35 |
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| USA |
10 |
13 |
11 |
34 |
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| NOR |
11 |
7 |
6 |
24 |
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| CAN |
6 |
3 |
8 |
17 |
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| RUS |
6 |
6 |
4 |
16 |
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| AUT |
2 |
4 |
10 |
16 |
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| ITA |
4 |
4 |
4 |
12 |
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| FRA |
4 |
5 |
2 |
11 |
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| SUI |
3 |
2 |
6 |
11 |
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| NED |
3 |
5 |
0 |
8 |
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President of Latvia visits Salt Lake
Bruce Lindsay
KSL-TV
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Latvia's president sat down for an interview with News Specialist Bruce Lindsay this morning, after she made a crowd pleasing appearance at Rowland Hall - St. Mark's school.
When Rowland Hall - St. Mark's School was assigned to study the country of Latvia under SLOC's one-school, one country program, students never dreamed they'd learn Latvia's national anthem, let alone meet the country's president.
And for most of her life, as a citizen of Canada, Vaira Vike-Freiberga never dreamed she'd be president of Latvia.
But a few years ago she returned to the land of her birth to establish the Latvian Institute. One thing quickly led to another, and parliament named her head of state.
At the Olympics she has cheered the Latvian hockey team to a victory and a tie. And she explained to me why the Latvians are so passionate about their national team.
"What makes us maybe special in this regard is that Latvia did not have its own teams under its own flag under the years of Soviet occupation," she explains.
"Latvia, in fact, won medals in the bobsled at the Calgary Olympics-- the four man team. They were all ethnic Latvians from Latvia, but they started and won their medal, the gold medal, under the Soviet flag. And for us, of course, this was a painful thing, because Latvians cherish their independence and their identity, and they were robbed of it during the whole time of the forceful incorporation into the Soviet Union."
"So now that we are able to have our own participation in international sports events, under our own national flag, under our own identity, we have recovered something very precious that we had lost for very long. And this is why the people appreciate it so passionately, and support it with such fervor."
Since Latvia's "singing revolution" nearly a dozen years ago, at the beginning of the break up of the Soviet Union, Vike-Freiberga says the country of 2.4 million people has been working to make up for lost time.
It quickly reinstated the democratic constitution under which the country had been governed until 1945.
"Everything proceded smoothly because we had, already, democratic traditions behind us."
"We've been working on changing our economy, to recreate private property and to create a free market situation. We do have that now. But what we need now is to increase the standard of living of all our inhabitants."
"Latvia had a wonderful growth last year. 7.8% growth in the Gross National Product. One of the best on the continent or anywhere, for that matter. And we're very proud of that. And we hope that we can, if not that high a figure, that we can continue that growth in the future, so that every citizen in Latvia can look forward to an improvement in their standard of life."
On Friday in Salt Lake, Vike-Freiberga briefed President Bush on Latvia's efforts to qualify for membership in NATO.
Earlier last week in Washington, she attended separate meetings with Vice-President Cheney and Secretary of State Powell, campaigning for admission into the alliance.
"I think America, since September 11, knows that securities are vulnerable, and a fragile thing. One needs to work for it. One needs supporters. Even such a great country and a great military power as America looked to allies and supporters after the terrorist attacks. We, as a very small country with the kind of past we have had, you can imagine how it's even more important for us to have friends and allies on whom we can count if a crisis starts."
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February 11, 2002
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