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Friday, February 22, 2002

Day 15, 1 p.m.-7 p.m.-- TV: MSNBC. Mario Lemieux and Canada aim for a berth in the gold-medal men's hockey game when they play Belarus. In men's curling, the bronze-medal game between Sweden and Switzerland will be broadcast before the hockey game and the gold-medal match between Canada and Norway will be televised after. ... 4 p.m.-5 p.m. -- TV: WPXI. All eyes will be on Dutch speed skater Gianni Romme as the men compete in the grueling 10,000 meters, their final event. Romme will be defending his Nagano gold after dominating the 2000-01 World Cup circuit in this event. ... 6 p.m.-9 p.m. --TV: CNBC. The United States takes on Russia for a chance to play for the gold medal in men's hockey. ... 8 p.m.-midnight -- TV: WPXI. Kristina Koznick has one more chance to give the American women a medal in alpine skiing in the women's giant slalom. Switzerland's Sonja Nef has been almost unbeatable in this event. The Nordic combined sprint wraps up with the 7.5K cross-country skiing segment, where Finland's Samppa Lajunen is the gold-medal favorite. Coverage wraps up with the champions' gala in figure skating and the first two runs in men's four-man bobsled, where the U.S. has not won a medal since 1956. ... 12:35 a.m.-2:05 a.m. -- TV: WPXI: Late-night wrapup and medal ceremonies.

Threatening e-mails regarding short-track speed-skating gold medalist Apolo Anton Ohno have been turned over to the FBI for investigation. The threats were received after Ohno's first race of the Olympics, when he won the silver medal in the 1,000 meters after wiping out near the finish line, USOC spokesman Mike Moran said.

Another 16,000 e-mails regarding Ohno, mostly from sources in South Korea, forced the USOC to take down its Internet server early yesterday, Moran said. Service was restored almost nine hours later.

French figure-skating judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne formally recanted her allegation that she was pressured into a vote-swapping deal in the pairs competition. Testifying for three hours Wednesday, Le Gougne retracted the statements she made last week to International Skating Union President Ottavio Cinquanta and denied accusations that witnesses heard her make in an emotional outburst after the competition, attorney Max Miller said.

Janica Kostelic came to Utah just hoping to win Croatia's first Winter Olympic medal. She goes into today's giant slalom with a chance to win more medals at one games than any Alpine skier in history. She has two golds and a silver.

With eight speed-skating medals, U.S. skaters have matched the record medal haul of the 1980 Games, where Eric Heiden won five gold medals. Still to come are today's men's 10,000 meters and tomorrow's women's 5,000.

Ruslan Salei, on Belarus' stunning upset of Sweden in a men's hockey quarterfinal: "It was like that Australian speed skater who won the gold because everybody fell down in front of him. It was luck."

The Japanese Olympic Committee apologized to local authorities after a cross-country coach inadvertently pointed an unloaded biathlon rifle at police in Heber City, near the Soldier Hollow venue. Coach Kazunari Sasaki, who said he had never handled a gun, asked the biathlon coaches if he could hold one of their rifles. He pointed the weapon toward a window in their hotel room, and two police officers in a room directly across the way saw the gun pointing in their direction. The officers quickly came to check, and Sasaki was still holding the rifle when he wheeled to face them as they entered the room. Sasaki, speaking through an interpreter, said: "I didn't know anything about gun etiquette. I heard afterward that if I pointed a gun at the police officers, they could have shot. I'm so glad that they didn't."