International Capsules: Schlopy earns inaugural slopestyle ski World title
PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — After winning the Big Air competition at the Winter X Games last weekend, Alex Schlopy headed home to Park City in search of an even bigger prize.
The American won gold in the inaugural men's slopestyle skiing finals at the Freestyle World Ski Championships on Thursday, joining other athletes from around the world in putting on a show they hope will land their event in the 2014 Winter Olympics.
"It's one of the fastest-growing, most progressive sports out there right now," Schlopy said of an event in which athletes go down a ski run filled with a variety of rails and jumps and, of course, acrobatic spins with big air. "People love it."
While at least one International Olympic Committee member was impressed Thursday, a decision on whether to include the event at the Sochi Games won't be made until April.
"What I have seen from slopestyle, it is very good," said Canadian IOC representative Walter Sieber. "What I can say is that the IOC sending an observer here is very serious in recognizing eventually that slopestyle and halfpipe skiing could potentially be accepted."
The IOC is weighing whether to include several new events at the 2014 Winter Games: men's and women's slopestyle skiing, men's and women's slopestyle snowboarding, men's and women's halfpipe skiing, women's ski jumping, a luge team relay, biathlon mixed relay, and team events for figure skating and Alpine skiing.
Olympic gold medalist Shaun White, an icon in snowboard halfpipe, already has indicated he would consider crossing over to slopestyle if it's added to the Sochi Games.
"Halfpipe has been there," said Jeremy Forster, director of freestyle skiing for the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association. "It's been proven with snowboarding, so obviously there's a standard they can look at and evaluate."
Slopestyle also has been proven at some of the biggest events around the world, including the Winter X Games, where crowds swelled to more than 40,000 last weekend in Aspen, Colo.
"Just getting into X Games was a huge accomplishment for me," said Schlopy, who still had enough energy after his quick drive home to score 41.80 on Thursday and edge Winter X Games gold medalist Sam Carlson (41.50) for the slopestyle world title.
"I was so excited for this big event," Schlopy said. "Being able to do well in my home town was the best thing I could ever ask for."
Australia's Anna Segal won the women's slopestyle competition with 43.40 points, a crowning achievement after a major knee injury forced her to switch from moguls five years ago. Segal had to work three jobs in Aspen to help fund her early endeavors.
"I wanted to do something more fun and crazy," she said of slopestyle. "If it gets included in the Olympics, I can look back and say I won the first world championship. It's awesome."
Canada's Kaya Turski (41.70) earned silver and American Keri Herman (41.0) took bronze.
Segal is confident about the future of her new event, especially after seeing three different countries represented on the podium and flags from others like Norway and Great Britain flying in the Park City crowd — despite temperatures that hovered just above zero.
"It shows a lot of countries are participating in the event," Segal said. "That's very important to the IOC. I don't see any obstacles to getting into the Olympics."
Sarah Lewis, secretary general to the International Ski Federation, said the IOC's biggest concerns might be that slopestyle events are judged rather than timed.
"You don't have to look very far down the road from Park City with what happened in Salt Lake City and figure skating," Lewis said of the scoring scandal at the 2002 Winter Games. "It's important we demonstrate the judging system is solid."
Lewis also said there is no issue with having to build new facilities to handle slopestyle events. A terrain park already is planned in Russia, and features can be built based upon how creative athletes get by the 2014 Winter Games.
"Who knows where we'll be in 12 months or in three years and the tricks they'll ... come up with? It's a sport that can easily be adapted," she said.
Joe Fitzgerald, freestyle director for the International Ski Federation, said the popularity already is there. About 50 nations have youths doing the same jumps and tricks that Schlopy and Segal performed Thursday, with an estimated 1,500 terrain parks worldwide.
The jumps can range anywhere from 60 to 70 feet with skiers often traveling even farther through the air, completing three and four flips with various grabs and rotations.
"It's this huge, phenomenal growth of what kids are actually doing these days," Fitzgerald said, noting the IOC likes youth appeal when weighing new events. "The equipment is in place, the snow's in place, the courses are in place. And the original spirit of freestyle has always been there. They're just expressing it again."
Vonn day-to-day after concussion in training crash
ZWIESEL, Germany (AP) — Three-time World Cup champion Lindsey Vonn sustained a concussion when she crashed during practice and was still unsure Thursday whether she will compete in the final two races before the world championships.
Vonn told The Associated Press she will have a medical check Friday morning before deciding whether to race in a World Cup slalom hours later. A giant slalom was scheduled for Saturday.
"The doctor has to clear me for tomorrow. It depends if I have any symptoms, they are worried about the second impact. Concussions can be pretty dangerous," Vonn said.
The American hit her head in a crash Wednesday while practicing the giant slalom in Austria. On her Facebook page, Vonn described the "pretty scary crash. ... I hit my head pretty hard."
"I am definitely sore from my crash but I am definitely feeling better as far as my head goes, we'll play it by ear tomorrow," she told the AP. "I didn't ski today just to be safe, to have one more day before the race, try to be a little bit more healthy."
Vonn said the soreness was "manageable," and not something that would prevent her from competing at next week's world championships, where Vonn will defend her super-G and downhill titles in Garmisch-Partenkirchen beginning Tuesday.
"I will definitely be racing at the world championships," she said. "I crashed or almost crashed many times this season, so it's not something new. I don't know what's got into me this year. It's been different mistakes every time. Crashing is part of my job, part of ski racing."
Vonn injured her left knee that required a strenuous recovery after making a major mistake during a downhill in Cortina, Italy, last month.
"It's not perfect, but it's definitely better," Vonn said of her knee. "It's got to the point where it's a very manageable injury. It may bother me for a week or two, but I'm happy with it."
If she is forced to skip the next two races, Vonn could lose more ground to her friend and rival Maria Riesch of Germany in their battle for the overall World Cup title. Riesch holds a 145-point lead over the American.
-- Nesha Starcevic
U.S. prospect Shiffrin takes bronze at junior worlds
CRANS-MONTANA, Switzerland (AP) — Mikaela Shiffrin made her first big mark on Alpine skiing's world stage Thursday.
The 15-year-old skier from Vail, Colo., won a slalom bronze medal at the junior world championships despite the lingering effects of a virus. She trailed two 19-year-olds in the in the 108-racer lineup — gold medalist Jessica Depauli of Austria and silver medalist Anna Swenn-Larsson of Sweden — .
Shiffrin, skiing at her first junior worlds, completed the two runs in 1 minute 41.27 seconds — 0.95 seconds behind the winner.
"I'm happy with today," Shiffrin said. "It wasn't my cleanest run, but it was pretty good so I can't complain at all."
A student at Burke Mountain Academy in Vermont, Shiffrin has been touted as the best American prospect since Olympic champions Lindsey Vonn and Julia Mancuso broke through a decade ago. She established a reputation with victories in her debut season on the second-tier North American Cup circuit.
"Everything so far in my career has gone pretty well," she said.
A 24-hour virus prevented her from starting in Wednesday's giant slalom.
"I was throwing up and wasn't feeling too good. Today just came as a rush. I felt good enough to race and was pretty determined to at least take the first run," she said. "Then, in the start, I realized I felt pretty good. I really couldn't have had a better trip."
Injured Zettel to skip super-combi at ski worlds
VIENNA (AP) — Defending champion Kathrin Zettel of Austria will not start in next week's super-combined event at the world championships because of a persistent hip injury.
Zettel told the Austria Presse Agency on Thursday that "it is not realistic. I have not been able to do speed training. ... The risks would have been too high."
The 24-year-old Zettel has been struggling with hip problems since last year. She has only competed in slalom and giant slalom races this World Cup season. The super-combined consists of a downhill and a slalom. Zettel's victory earned the Austria women's team its only gold medal at the 2009 worlds in Val d'Isere, France.
Olympics
1980 Games organizer Wolff dies at 95
SARANAC LAKE, N.Y. (AP) — Phil Wolff, chief of staff of the 1980 Lake Placid Olympic Organizing Committee, has died. He was 95.
Stephen Wolff said his grandfather collapsed and died Thursday at his second home in San Diego, though he did not specify the cause of the death. Philip Wolff also had a home in Saranac Lake.
Wolff was the oldest living licensed bobsled driver and founder of the Lake Placid Winter Olympic Museum. He was a member of the 1976 and 1980 Winter Olympic bid committees.
In 1978, he was appointed chief of staff of the Lake Placid Winter Olympic Organizing Committee, a position he held until its closure in 1987, volunteering his time during the last three years of that assignment. He also served as chief of the security committee for the 1980 Winter Games.
"Phil made a lasting impact by preserving the Olympic history of two Olympic Winter Games in Lake Placid," said Scott Blackmun, Chief Executive Officer of the USOC. "He built relationships acting as a conduit between the local community and the Olympic Family."
Born in Buffalo, N.Y., on Oct. 19, 1915, Wolff made his first visit to Saranac Lake in 1928 and fell in love with the Adirondack Mountains. He attended Cornell University, took a year off from college to design and construct Saranac Lake's Riverside Park in 1937, and graduated the next year with a degree in landscape architecture.
Wolff and Elsie Hughes married in 1940 and opened a greenhouse in Ray Brook and a florist shop in Saranac Lake, which operated for 40 years. He served in the Army Corps of Engineers in the South Pacific from 1943-45 and was among the troops sent to occupy Japan, visiting ground zero in Nagasaki just six weeks after it was destroyed by an atomic bomb. He received the Purple Heart, Silver Star and other citations before returning to Saranac Lake and served an additional 17 years as an Army Reserve officer, starting an Army Reserve unit at Paul Smith's College.
Wolff served as president of Saranac Lake Chamber of Commerce and Rotary Club and was a member of the Town Board of North Elba, chairman of the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival, and a member of the Northwood School board of directors.
He also was elected town justice of the Town of North Elba in 1960 and served for 18 years, performing many marriages, including those of his children.
Inducted into the Lake Placid Hall of Fame in 2002, Wolff also was a founding member and treasurer of AdkAction.org, an Adirondack advocacy group started in 2006. He is survived by his wife, three children, and four grandchildren.
A funeral was being planned in Saranac Lake during the summer, the family said.
Police recover Olympic skeleton champion's medal
OCEANSIDE, Calif. (AP) — Police have recovered the Olympic gold medal that was stolen a week ago from the Southern California home of the women's skeleton winner in the 2002 Salt Lake City games.
Tristan Gale Geisler told the San Diego Union-Tribune Tuesday that police found her medal, her Olympic ring, a computer hard drive containing family photographs and other stolen items.
Officers raided an Oceanside house and arrested three men.
Geisler says burglars broke into her Oceanside home through a first-floor alley window while she was walking her dog Jan. 26. A neighbor noticed the suspicious activity and wrote down a license plate number.
Geisler was overjoyed when detectives called to say they had found her property. She says the detective made her promise to get a safety-deposit box for the medal.
Swimming
Commentary: Thorpedo is in pool again, aiming for 2012 Games
PARIS (AP) — Ian Thorpe vs. Michael Phelps, a chlorinated version of Godzilla vs. King Kong. Just imagine. Guaranteed to get top billing next year at the London Olympics.
If it happens. Might not. Or may be an anticlimax if it does.
So what. Until reality proves otherwise, let's revel in the fantasy of these human fish, the greatest swimmers of their times, competing in one last Olympics together.
It could, just could, be truly remarkable, a defining memory from London. And if it's not? If it's a flop or if Thorpe is a no-show? Well, no harm done.
Still won't stop the marketeers from milking this hoped-for rematch of Olympic legends for all of its considerable worth.
There is always a rush to judgment when an athlete of Thorpe's stature announces that he or she is making a comeback.
The quick consensus is that the sequel is rarely as good as the original. The standard examples — Bjorn Borg's feeble 1991 return with a wooden racket, Michael Jordan's deflating two seasons with the Washington Wizards, Michael Schumacher's so far ho-hum comeback to Formula One — are dusted off to support the argument that, more often than not, ex-athletes are wiser to stay retired.
That is likely true for the Thorpedo, too.
For starters, his sudden desire to swim at the 2012 Games has come awfully late, making it look more like a whim than a well thought-out plan. He's got less than 550 days to get back into Olympic shape and little more than a year until the Australian tryouts in March 2012. But if he rushes too quickly, Thorpe risks an injury that could wreck this comeback before it's really begun.
His age, 28, shouldn't be a problem. Don't forget that Thorpe was a precocious star — once he overcame his childhood allergy to chlorine. A world champion at 15. At 16, he broke four world records in four days. An Olympic champion at 17. A premature retiree in 2006 at age 24, shorn of motivation having achieved so much, so young.
But even assuming that Thorpe is lucky enough to train without hitches and that 30-40 hours in the pool each week don't soon dampen his ardor, much of 2011 will still be a write-off for cleaning away the rust. As for any swimmer coming out of retirement, Thorpe must wait nine months before competing, so dope testers can first give him an all-clear. He'll therefore miss the world championships in July that would have given an early indication of whether he can still measure up against the best.
In other words, the odds are stacked against him. All the more reason why Thorpe should be applauded for giving this adventure a whirl. It could end poorly, be criticized as foolhardy, embarrassing, a sad grab for attention or money. And that makes it brave, too. As Thorpe says, it would have been easier to stay retired.
"I have had an almost flawless career, and I put that at risk," he said Wednesday.
In fact, Thorpe is wrong there. His five Olympic gold medals, three silvers and one bronze are his forever. So, too, are his 13 world championship medals. They cannot be tarnished by whatever happens between now and July 2012.
Just seeing Thorpe back in the water will be a thrill. His freestyle was always as smooth and seemingly as effortless as caressing velvet, powered by his long armstrokes and size 17 feet. Even if he proves too slow to race in London, it is going to be pleasing to the eye watching him try.
Thorpe is hoping for a spot on Australia's 400- and 800-meter freestyle relay teams. Which events Phelps will swim may not be known until after this year's world championships. But two of Phelps' record eight golds at the 2008 Beijing Games came in those freestyle races. And Phelps and Thorpe both raced in the 800-meter freestyle relay at the 2004 Athens Games. It was one of the most dramatic races of those Olympics, outshining even their head-to-head individual battle with Pieter van den Hoogenband in the 200 freestyle — which Thorpe won.
Now, thanks to Thorpe, we have a shot of seeing them do it all over again. Hope so.
Perhaps nothing will come of it. But at least Thorpe will have tried. And that has to be better than not trying at all.
John Leicester is an international sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jleicester@ap.org.
Track & Field
LSU track & field teams head to New York for meet
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — With the 2011 indoor in full swing, the LSU track and field teams look to add to their roster for this year's NCAA Indoor Championships this weekend as they make their annual trip to New York to compete in the New Balance Collegiate Invitational.
The two-day meet kicks off for LSU on Friday with the field events followed by the first on the track later in the day.
The Tigers are set to battle such programs as Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Arkansas, Texas, Ohio State, BYU and North Carolina.
The Lady Tigers will join 10 other nationally-ranked squads including Texas A&M, Tennessee, Arkansas, BYU, Texas, Villanova, Texas Tech, South Carolina, Georgetown and Ohio State.
Norwegian race walker Tysse appeals doping ruling
OSLO, Norway (AP) — Race walker Erik Tysse is appealing a two-year suspension after testing positive for the blood-booster CERA.
On Tuesday, the Norwegian Athletics Federation ruled that an Italian laboratory analysis was in line with World Anti-Doping Agency requirements and the Norwegian would remain suspended.
Tysse was suspended from all competition in July after a laboratory in Rome said he tested positive for CERA at a competition in Italy in May. The analysis showed both the "A'' and "B'' samples were positive for CERA.
Federation spokesman Martin Hafsahl says Tysse appealed the ruling Tuesday. Tysse has denied the use of banned drugs.
