Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 18, 1994 TAG: 9402180243
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Newsday
DATELINE: KVITFJELL, NORWAY LENGTH: Medium
Four days ago, when this fellow from the United States seemed to come out of nowhere and win Alpine skiing's big event, the Olympic downhill, Europeans were running around asking, "Who's Tommy Moe? Who's Tommy Moe?"
Thursday, after Moe had won yet another Olympic medal - a silver in the men's Super G - he heard the mostly Norwegian crowd singing "Happy Birthday." It was after all, his 24th birthday.
"I guess it was just kind of surprising," Moe said, "so I gave them a little wave and blew them a little kiss, because this is a great Olympics and they're putting on a great show." It turned out that the crowd was singing "Happy Birthday" to Norwegian skier Atle Skardal, who turned 29 on Thursday.
But, what the heck. Moe has made news friends and influenced a lot of skiing observers here.
His run Thursday left him eight-hundredths of a second behind Germany's Markus Wasmeier and ahead of Kjetil Andre Aamodt, who keeps finishing one medal behind Moe. It was Aamodt who took the silver when Moe won his downhill gold Sunday.
"I looked at the split times and I realized I could have won this," Moe said. "I was a 10th of a second ahead of Markus at the last interval, but I had a little mistake on the bottom. I was a little too straight.
"But I'm really happy for Markus. He won the World Championships in the Super G in 1985 and now it's nine years later.
"He's been out there on the World Cup circuit for a long time, so I'm just really happy for him. He's a really good guy."
Moe has won two of the Americans' four medals in these Olympics, and all four have come in skiing; Diann Roffe-Steinrotter's gold in women's Super G and Liz McIntyre's silver in moguls are the others. But the rest of the U.S. team was at the other end of the results list from Moe on Thursday. Chad Fleischer failed to finish the Super G, and AJ Kitt and Kyle Rasmussen were disqualified for missing a gate.
"I thought to myself, `Maybe nobody noticed,' " Rasmussen said. "And then it was like, `Yeah, right; this is the Olympics."
In the Olympics, people notice. Even birthdays.
by CNB