|
 |
2002 Games in Utah are a dream come true for Stein Eriksen
By Brad Rock
Deseret News sports writer
There was the evening reception in Park City, with the crown prince and princess of Norway in attendance. Also last week was an elegant dinner, hosted by the crown princess. She shouldered the responsibility all by herself because the king was on his way to Utah, which meant someone had to get back to tend the castle.
The crown prince got elected.
Sunday night, another dinner, this one at Log Haven with the king himself.
For Stein Eriksen, the Olympics have been one big reception. There's no end to the social agenda when you're Utah's No.1 ranking Norwegian.
Then there are the other obligations: interviews with CNN, MSNBC, NBC and so many foreign news organizations he lost count. Eriksen has always been an international story. He's big in the United States for being a major force in the American ski industry for decades. He's big in Norway because he won two Olympic medals for that country and was knighted several years ago.
The basis for Eriksen's booming social schedule is, of course, the Winter Olympics. Monday and Tuesday at Deer Valley — Eriksen's personal stomping ground — the aerials finals for men and women will be held. Wednesday and Friday competition turns to slalom.
"The sun is out and the Olympics are starting for another day," he was saying on Sunday morning. "It's fantastic. The opening ceremonies touched me . . . the weather has been good every day. It's been great."
Pardon Eriksen if he waxes poetic about having the Olympics in his own neighborhood. He's only been waiting 33 years. When he came to Utah in 1969, he took one look and declared this an ideal Olympic venue. It took the IOC only 26 years to agree. The rest of the world didn't figure it out until now. After a slow January at Deer Valley, reservations for late February and early March are booming. His countrymen all seem to see what Eriksen was raving about all those years ago.
"People," said Eriksen, "are feeling very well taken care of."
It is only fitting that Eriksen, Deer Valley's director of skiing, would be the center of Norwegian attention during the XIX Olympic Winter Games. It has been exactly 50 years since he won gold and silver medals in giant slalom and slalom in the Winter Games in Oslo. It has been 90 years since his father competed in the Summer Olympics in Stockholm as a gymnast.
Talk about a custom fit.
Did someone make this up?
It is also appropriate that the moguls and aerials events are being held at Deer Valley. Eriksen started all that. In the late 1940s, he found himself stretched out in a familiar gymnastics position, called a "layout."
Only difference between that one and the one his gymnast father used to do was that Stein was wearing skis.
Freestyle skiing was born.
Fortuitously, Eriksen has never tired of his life on the slopes. Seventy-four years old, he still skis every day. That probably accounts for why the last 50 years have passed so quickly.
"It seems a little short, that 50 years," he said. "All the things that have happened in between. But when you go out on the mountain and ski every day, it doesn't seem like that much time has passed."
Along the way, he worked on getting the Winter Olympics to Utah. He told all his European friends the snow was great, the sky clear and getting to the venues would be a snap, compared to the Alps. He also told them they would be impressed with the help. Sure enough, the volunteer army of Utahns who showed up met both his and the crown prince's expectations.
Locals have made them all feel like, well, royalty.
This week there will be 11,000 or so spectators at Deer Valley, taking in the events. The setting is perfect: blue sky, bright snow and a straight-shot view of the mountains as the skiers come sailing in.
"It is a dream-come-true setting," said Eriksen.
That figures.
It's a dream-come-true story.
E-MAIL: rock@desnews.com
|
|
February 18, 2002
|
