WinterSports2002.com, Thursday, March 14, 2002

U.S. relay team grabs silver

American men win first medal ever in the event

By Jesse Hyde
Deseret News staff writer

SOLDIER HOLLOW — The shivering crowd at Soldier Hollow sat as still as the falling snow Wednesday afternoon, waiting for a reason to ring their cow bells and scream USA.

They had come to watch two cross country ski races, but the first — the women's relay — had been a Norwegian blowout.

Then the reason came into the stadium, his legs strapped in a sled, his arms pushing with fury, his body wrapped in red, white and blue.

It was Robert Balk, who had promised the day before, with a preacher's conviction, Team USA would take the gold in the men's relay.

By the calculations of Willie Stewart, who skied the second leg, gold was possible but statistically out of reach.

Stewart had spent hours the night before with a calculator considering all possible scenarios — which athletes would start, the fastest possible times — and had concluded his team could finish anywhere from second to ninth.

Those precise calculations went out the window when Balk finished his leg in first place, giving Stewart a 13-second cushion.

Stewart, who lost his left arm in a roofing accident, skied well enough to keep his team in medal contention, finishing 22 seconds off the pace. Balk's gold medal promise now rested on Salt Lake City's Steve Cook, skiing the third and final leg.

Catching race leader Nikolai Ilioutchenko, a blind Russian, was a formidable task, but Cook's superior skating ability made it possible.

Cook immediately closed the gap, passing the Norwegian on the first hill, and then set his sights on the Russian.

"Everybody was saying he's dying, he's dying, so I tried to ski conservatively across the flats, and I just really hammered the hills. And I was close," Cook said.

So close he finished just 1.6 seconds behind the Russian, giving the dozens of elementary school children in attendance ample reason to squeal the "USA" at the top of their lungs.

Had the race lasted another few meters, Cook says he would have won, a claim most watching the race would agree on.

But it didn't matter — it was the first time ever Americans had won a Paralympic medal in the men's relay.

Cook, who is missing his right leg below the knee, has now won three silver medals in these Games and hopes for gold in Saturday's 20K race.

The women's race was dominated by Norway, which finished one minute ahead of Russia and 3 1/2 minutes ahead of bronze medalist Finland.

Norway was powered by its superstar Ragnhild Myklebust, a 58-year-old who has won 17 Paralympic gold medals, four of them here. After the race she briefly stripped down to her sports bra in the falling snow, revealing a physique so sculpted John Stockton would have blushed with envy.

"Every medal is hard," said Myklebust, a sit-skier whose legs were weakened by polio. "It's never easy."

E-MAIL: jhyde@desnews.com

© 2002 Deseret News Publishing Company