It takes about a quarter of a second to snap your fingers twice. It takes between a tenth of a second and 15 hundredths to blink your eyes. In the Winter Olympics’ speed events, dreams of glory vanish even faster.
Speedskaters know a barely noticeable slip on a glassy sheet of ice can be the difference between hero and zero. Alpine skiers, bobsledders and luge sliders plunge down bumpy mountains or oversized drainpipes at speeds up to 90 mph, only to have their destinies decided by nearly unfathomable increments of time.
“A little skid here or there,” said American luge medal contender Tony Benshoof, “I’m thinking, ‘There goes four hundredths.”‘
A momentary puff of wind or a mistake in the waxroom can doom a skier’s hopes. The sun can break through broken clouds momentarily, causing a ski slope or sledding track to get infinitesimally faster, just enough to shuffle the results.
“I can tell when the track speeds up by like a second,” Benshoof said. “Everything changes. You can feel a couple miles per hour.”
How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Almost as many of the world’s best skiers, sliders and skaters can finish within a second of each other with Olympic medals on the line. Legends are built on minuscule differences.
Tommy Moe never won a World Cup downhill, but at Lillehammer in 1994 he became an American Olympic icon by winning the gold medal in the marquee event of the Winter Games. Training runs suggested Moe’s ski technician, Willi Wiltz, was giving him the fastest skis and Moe proved it on race day, prevailing by .04 of a second (a third of an eye-blink) over Norway’s main man, Kjetil Andre Aamodt. It took Moe 1 minute, 45.75 seconds to ski the 1.89-mile course. The next 14 racers were within a second of him.
Another American Olympic ski legend cut it even closer. At Nagano in 1998, Picabo Street created a feel-good moment for the ages by winning the super-G gold medal 14 months after seriously injuring her left knee in Vail. Her margin over silver medalist Michaela Dorfmeister of Austria was .01 of a second, the closest in Olympic ski racing history.
At the 2002 Salt Lake Games, the American two-man bobsled of Todd Hays and Garrett Hines missed a bronze medal by .03 of a second.
“It’s really frustrating,” Hays said. “Having been fourth at the Olympic Games by three-hundredths, that’s tough to live with, but at the same time you know it’s within reach. That makes you train a little harder.”
Six days after the two-man race in Salt Lake, Hays drove a four-man sled to the first Olympic bobsled medal (silver) for the U.S. in 46 years. Gold medalist Germany was .3 of a second faster – over four runs.
In skiing, bobsled and speedskating, times are recorded in hundredths of seconds. Luge has timed to thousandths since doubles teams from Italy and Germany tied for the gold medal at the 1972 Olympics.
“It’s part of the sport,” luger Ashley Hayden said. “You have to be exactly precise at every moment.”
Hayden, who finished eighth in Salt Lake, missed making this year’s U.S. Olympic team by .435 of a second.
At the 1998 Olympics, Germany’s Silke Kraushaar won a luge gold medal by .002 over teammate Barbara Niedernhuber. That’s two-thousandths of a second in 4 miles of racing over four runs.
In the men’s super-G at the 1999 world alpine championships at Beaver Creek, the favorites prevailed, but not by much. In the closest major ski race in history, Norway’s Lasse Kjus tied for the gold medal with Austria’s Hermann Maier. Austrian Hans Knauss took the bronze, .01 behind the winners. Hometown hero Chad Fleischer was sixth – .28 of a second from a gold medal.
In the women’s super-G at last year’s world championships in Bormio, Italy, Ski Club Vail’s Lindsey Kildow was reduced to tears after finishing ninth, less than a half-second behind teammate Julia Mancuso, who was all giggles after taking the bronze medal. Then Kildow finished fourth in the downhill and the combined, missing medals by a cumulative .43 of a second.
Average speeds in the Bormio downhill were almost 65 mph, with top speeds exceeding 75 mph.
“It’s crazy,” Kildow said. “It’s amazing how you’re going downhill so fast, and there’s a lot of different ways to get from point A to point B. Then it comes down to a couple of hundredths. It’s strange. It’s weird.”
Kildow, a natural downhiller who is nearly fearless – she’s never been seriously injured – loves the speed of downhill and super-G.
“It’s really a rush,” Kildow said. “When you’re going fast and you make a sweet turn, it’s really hard to find anything better, in my mind at least. When you’re going downhill 80 mph, it’s a really cool feeling. You don’t get that doing anything else. It’s totally an adrenaline rush.”
But downhill and super-G take racers over rolls and jumps. Giant slalom and slalom jolt them with chatter marks and ruts. Yet there are countless examples of excruciatingly close races.
In the 1978 Hahnenkamm downhill in Kitzbuehel, Austria, Joseph Walcher and Sepp Ferstl tied for first over the most demanding terrain in the sport. In 1987, Switzerland’s Maria Walliser and Vreni Schneider were tied for the World Cup giant slalom lead going into the final race of the season. They tied that race and shared the season title.
Benshoof, who finished third in this season’s luge World Cup standings, has won and lost races by one-thousandth of a second.
“You can really beat yourself up, saying, ‘Where was that thousandth?”‘ Benshoof said. “Sometimes I just chalk it up to luck. You just have to reduce the variables, be really consistent. (Body) position is important, aerodynamics is important, having your sled perfect, having every little hole taped (in the racing suit), no wrinkles – all those things add up to thousandths and thousandths.”
Brian Martin, who took bronze and silver medals in duals luge the past two Olympics with Mark Grimmette, said the fine line between winning and losing in his sport is one of its main attractions.
“I really enjoy going out there and racing and seeing if I can be that thousandth of a second better than the next guy,” Martin said. “You want to be competing against people who are good. As much as you want to win every race, if you’re racing against somebody who’s five seconds slower than you, you don’t really get up for that race, you don’t get charged by the thrill of the competition.”
Martin and Grimmette missed the gold medal in Salt Lake by .134 of a second.
“It’s part of the fun,” Martin said.
Top speeds in long track skating are less than half what skiers and sliders reach, but the margins can be equally cruel. In the men’s 1,000 meters at Albertville in 1992 – the closest speedskating race in Olympic history – Olaf Zinke of Germany beat Kim Yoon-man of Korea by .01 of a second. Gerard van Velde of Holland finished fourth, .01 behind bronze medalist Yukinori Miyabe of Japan. The sixth-place finisher, Igor Zhelezovsky of the Soviet Union, was .2 of a second behind the winner.
Long tracker Maria Lamb earned the fourth and final U.S. Olympic spot at 1,500 meters this year by finishing .06 of a second ahead of the fifth-place finisher, Maggie Crowley, at the U.S. championships.
“I knew what my lap times were, so I knew it was going to be really close,” Lamb said. “I was just like, ‘Oh, my God, Maria, you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go!’ Every tiny bit counts. But I didn’t know it was going to be that close.”
In Salt Lake the USA 1 four-man bobsled driven by Hays had the fastest first two runs and took a lead of .09 of a second over Switzerland 1 and Germany 2 (they were tied) into the final two runs. With speeds hitting the mid-80s, Germany 2 took the lead on the third run, beating USA 1 by .38 of a second, and added another hundredth on the fourth run. USA 2 took the bronze medal, .05 of a second behind USA 1.
“You just have to deal with them like they’re large margins,” Hays said. “You have to break a hundredth of a second down to more like a second. A tenth is like an eternity. Small margins become big margins, so you have to look at them that way, search for those hundredths.”
John Meyer can be reached at 303-820-1616 or jmeyer@denverpost.com.
Colorado connection
At the Turin Games, 35 athletes who live, train, work or grew up in Colorado will be competing. Our Olympians:
Alpine skiing
Lindsey Kildow member of Ski Club Vail, lives in Park City, Utah
Sarah Schleper lives in Vail
Biathlon
Lanny Barnes hometown is Durango; lives in Fort Kent, Maine
Tracy Barnes hometown is Durango; lives in Fort Kent, Maine
Cross country skiing
Rebecca Dussault lives in Gunnison
Freestyle mogals
Jeremy Bloom grew up in Loveland, played football for CU
Toby Dawson grew up in and lives in Vail
Travis Mayer lives and trains in Steamboat Springs
Michelle Roark grew up in Denver, Colorado Mines student
Freestyle aerials
Ryan St. Onge grew up in Winter Park, lives in Steamboat Spr.
Hockey
John Grahame hometown is Denver (playing for USA)
John-Michael Liles Colorado Avalanche member (USA)
Joe Sakic Colorado Avalanche member (Canada)
Vitaly Kolesnik Colorado Avalanche member (Kazakhstan)
Rob Blake Colorado Avalanche member (Canada)
Peter Budaj Colorado Avalanche member (Slovakia)
Marek Svatos Colorado Avalanche member (Slovakia)
Milan Hejduk Colorado Avalanche member (Czech Republic)
Antti Laaksonen Colorado Avalanche member (Finland)
Karlis Skrastins Colorado Avalanche member (Latvia)
David Aebischer Colorado Avalanche member (Switzerland)
Luge
Courtney Zablocki lives in Highlands Ranch
Nordic combined
Todd Lodwick lives in Steamboat Springs
Johnny Spillane lives in Steamboat Springs
Short track
Allison Baver trains in Colorado Springs
Caroline Hallisey trains in Colorado Springs, Palmer H.S. graduate
Hyo-Jung Kim trains in Colorado Springs
Apolo Anton Ohno trains in Colorado Springs
Alex Izykowski trains in Colorado Springs
JP Kepka trains in Colorado Springs, attends UCCS
Skeleton
Katie Uhlaender hometown is Breckenridge
Ski jumping
Clint Jones lives in Steamboat Springs
Tommy Schwall lives in Steamboat Springs
Snowboarding
Gretchen Bleiler Aspen H.S. grad, trains in Snowmass (halfpipe)
Jason Smith grew up in and lives in Basalt (snowboardcross)
