Tim Burke's historic silver medal

There are moments in sports when all the hard work, the dreams, the belief without evidence -- it all pays off.

It finally happened Thursday for Tim Burke and the U.S. men's biathlon team at the world championships in Nove Mesto, in the Czech Republic.

Burke, 31, of Paul Smiths, N.Y., took silver in the 20-kilometer individual event, his first career world championship medal. The medal marked the first for the United States at a world championships since Josh Thompson's 20k individual silver in 1987.

Burke crossed in 50 minutes, 6.5 seconds, with one penalty. He finished 23.5 seconds behind the World Cup leader, Martin Fourcade of France, who won his first medal of the 2013 championships in 49:43 flat, with one penalty. Sweden's Fredrik Lindström took third, in 50:16.7.

The United States has never -- repeat, never -- won an Olympic medal in biathlon.

Thursday's race is of course no guarantee of anything at the Winter Games come next February.

But now Burke and the American team head to Sochi knowing with certainty that he -- and they -- are just as good as anyone else.

That is a huge emotional and mental barrier that just got crossed.

Enormous.

Two other Americans produced solid showings Thursday: Leif Nordgren finished 22nd, Lowell Bailey 29th.

Meanwhile, at last month's biathlon junior world championships in Obertilliach, Austria, Sean Doherty made U.S. biathlon history as well -- becoming the first to win three medals in a single championships, including gold in the 10k pursuit, emerging as a solid contender to make the 2014 U.S. Olympic team in the relay.

Suddenly, the Americans are no joke. They're for real.

"I don't look at it like building pressure," meaning toward Sochi, Burke said in a telephone interview. "I look at [the silver medal] as an awesome way of, 'I know I can do it.' It's not, 'Can I do it?' I know it's possible. I don't have to worry about that."

He also said, referring to the possibility of making the podium in Sochi, "I am not the only one who has been saying this. Max [Cobb, the president and chief executive of the U.S. Biathlon Federation], Bernd [Eisenbichler, the team's high performance director], everyone has been saying this to the U.S. Olympic Committee and to our sponsors: 'These guys can win medals.'

"Today proves what they have been saying is true."

It is also true that Burke's race -- and finish -- served as a reminder that sports still can, even on a day in which the headlines involving the South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius dominated so much, offer up a lesson in amity and goodwill.

Everyone in the tightly knit biathlon world knows the Americans have gone winless in the Olympics.

Everyone knows, too, that Burke wore the yellow jersey -- emblematic of the World Cup tour leader -- during the 2010 season but since then had to manage a comeback from a leg condition called "compartment syndrome" that's common to Nordic skiers.

A few weeks back, in December, at a World Cup in Slovenia, he took a third place in a 15k mass start -- his first podium finish since that 2010 season.

So he came to the worlds, which kicked off last Thursday, looking for big things. Then, though, his first two races didn't produce the results he was looking for -- tied for 28th in the 10k sprint, 32nd in the 12.5k pursuit.

This, though, is where the winning mental edge plays such a huge role in big-time sports.

Instead of sulking, or getting down, Burke stayed calm and focused on what was in front of him. He couldn't change what had already happened. He could only race the races still left to race.

"Today," he's said, "I felt like i was on a man on mission. I couldn't go through these championships -- after preparing all year -- and not show what I was capable of. Per [Nilsson], my coach, did a great job of shaking me up and telling me just to continue to believe in myself. He said, 'Don't you dare give up on these championships, things can change from day to day.' "

Burke drew a late start number -- 65 -- and so for most of the race he was able to shoot and ski without having any idea where he was in the standings. That also meant he didn't get caught up in his head in what was going on around him. It was just him, his skis and his gun.

It wasn't until his last time into the shooting range, when he heard the announcer say he was challenging for the gold medal, that he realized what was up. At that point, he said, "I tried not to think about it and stick to my routine." Laughing, he added, "I think I did a pretty good job. I was happy."

Out on the course, meanwhile, everyone else knew what was going on -- even if Burke didn't. Cobb, surrounded by well-wishers from other teams, could sense the excitement building as time kept ticking. As Burke skied near, and then across, the finish line, Cobb said, the scene was "just phenomenal."

Cobb said athletes, coaches and support staff from all over the world came over and high-fived the American contingent.

"It was one of those moments," Cobb said, "when you understand the role that sport can play, this notion that sport can bring the world together. That was in evidence today … in the finish line, and up on the course where I was, probably two dozen nations or more and they couldn't have been more excited for Tim and for us as this happened.

"It was," he said, "a really great moment."

Wrestling's Olympic future: now what?

So interesting, indeed, to bear witness to the emotional recoil to the move by the International Olympic Committee's policy-making executive board to cut wrestling from the 2020 Summer Games. When you strip that emotion out of it, and look at the cold logic of it, there's a compelling argument to be made in the IOC"s favor.

Not to say they're right. Just to say there is indeed some logic there.

There's also this -- this has nothing to do with being anti-American.

And this -- there's a sound argument to be made about how wrestling gets back onto the 2020 program. Which would also be logical. Though that would be rooted in politics, too, which after all is how wrestling got dropped in the first instance.

To begin:

This is, at one level, a math problem.

The IOC caps participation in the Summer Games at 28 sports.

In London last summer, there were 26. Golf and rugby are added for 2016 and 2020. That makes, obviously, 28.

After London, the rules were that one of the Summer Games sports was going to be dropped to form a "core" of 25. Doing some math here: 25 plus (golf and rugby) = 27.

So, for 2020, you add one to make 28.

That's assuming a big if -- if the IOC, at its all-members session in September in Buenos Aires, so chooses. It could choose to leave the number at 27. The 2020 Games site will also be chosen at that meeting in September; Madrid, Istanbul and Tokyo are in the running. The next IOC president, replacing Jacques Rogge, in office since 2001, will also be picked in Buenos Aires. It's a big meeting.

To its credit, the IOC has done a good job in the Winter Games of making the program way more attractive to a younger audience, adding events such as ski and snowboard halfpipe and slopestyle.

For the Summer Games, it has struggled to find a more current formula.

After London, each of the 26 sports was analyzed according to 39 criteria.

For weeks before Tuesday's IOC board meeting it had been clear to insiders that the two sports most at risk were modern pentathlon and wrestling.

As the Associated Press has reported, pentathlon ranked low in general popularity, getting a 5.2 on a scale of 10. It also scored low in TV rankings, with an average of 12.5 million viewers, a maximum of 33.5 million.

The modern pentathlon federation's governing body goes by the acronym UIPM; it has 108 member federations.

Wrestling's international governing body goes by the acronym FILA. It has 177 member federations.

Wrestling scored just below 5 on that 10 scale. It sold 113,851 tickets in London out of 116,854 available -- at a Games where most events were screaming sellouts.

It ranked low in the TV categories as well, with 58.5 million viewers max and an average of 23 million. Internet hits and press coverage also were ranked as low.

For all of wrestling's claims of "universality," moreover, the sport -- while immensely popular in places such as the United States, Japan, Russia, eastern Europe, former Soviet bloc nations, Turkey and Iran -- doesn't really offer up that many Asian, African or Latin athletes. Which longtime observers such as Harvey Schiller, the former baseball federation president, pointed out, also noting that it simply is "not great TV."

Moreover, the IOC report also observed that FILA has no athletes on its decision-making bodies, no women's commission, no ethics rules for technical officials and no medical official on its executive board.

There's this, too, though the IOC report doesn't mention it: FILA is virtually invisible on Facebook. In the year 2013, that is almost indefensible.

Pentathlon -- given a warning in 2002 -- got with the program, so to speak.

It cut its competition schedule from five days, to four, to one. It instituted the use of laser pistols instead of regular guns. It also played politics, an IOC essential, with UIPM first vice president Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr. now sitting on the IOC board.

FILA did virtually nothing.

So why expect a different result?

Even so, the outcry, especially here in the United States, was predictable. Crowds of 18,000 at big-time meets are hardly uncommon. Wrestling, especially in high schools, is a feature of American life. Supporters of the sport felt, in a word, blindsided.

But, again, look at it from the IOC perspective. Not emotionally -- logically. How has the sport grown over the past 10 years?

USA Wrestling is a model federation. That is not the issue.

With the inclusion next year of Grand Canyon University in Arizona, there will be 78 men's Division I wrestling programs.

It has been eight-plus years since women's wrestling arrived on the Olympic program in Athens in 2004. In that time, universities, even big-time programs such as USC. have launched women's varsity programs in sports such as sand volleyball and lacrosse. By contrast, the number of Division I women's wrestling programs: zero.

In the United States, the social media response to Tuesday's announcement sparked, for instance, a Facebook save-wrestling page and an online petition that urged the White House to "please put pressure on [the IOC} to overturn this horrible decision to drop the oldest sport in the world."

With all due respect, and in particular to the 20,051 people who had signed the petition as of Wednesday afternoon California time -- keep in mind that the members of the IOC entertained the president of the United States in Copenhagen in 2009, as he was urging them to vote for Chicago for the Summer Games, and then voted Chicago out in the very first round, as he was flying back home on Air Force One.

Since that very day, the U.S. Olympic Committee, led by chairman Larry Probst and then by chief executive Scott Blackmun as well, has made great strides in doing what FILA should have been doing -- recognizing that Olympic politics is all about relationships.

Again, the IOC move to strike wrestling from the program is not directed at the United States. Want more proof? For all the great American gold-medal victories over the years in the sport -- Rulon Gardner in Sydney in 2000, for instance -- the U.S. won only four medals in 2012, two gold.

The biggest winner in wrestling in London, without question, was Russia, with 11 medals.

Overall, the Russians won 82 medals.

Again, math: wrestlers accounted for 13 percent of Russia's entire medal tally.

That is what is called incentive.

It's why the head of the Russian Olympic Committee, Alexander Zhukov, was quoted by AP as saying they would use "all of our strength" to keep wrestling on the 2020 program.

The Russians are spending north of $50 billion readying for the Sochi 2014 Winter Games next February. When Vladimir Putin took over again as president of Russia, last May 7, the very first meeting he took that day was with whom? Of all the people and dignitaries in the world?

Rogge.

This is not a difficult triangulation: the Russians could bring a lot of "strength" and relationships to bear -- again, so to speak -- to this. In the sports sphere, this might help accelerate the end of the Cold War; the Americans might well be helpful supporters.

As it turns out, the next IOC board meeting, in late May, is in Russia -- in St. Petersburg. There the IOC board will decide how many sports the full IOC membership will get to consider in September for that 28th spot. Right now, the odds are good the number might well be three.

Wrestling is up against seven other sports, including a combined bid from baseball and softball, karate, squash and others.

Rogge, asked at a news conference Wednesday in Lausanne, Switzerland, the IOC's base, whether wrestling had a 2020 life, said, "I cannot look into a crystal ball into the future. We have established a fair process by which the sport that would not be included in the core has a chance to compete with the seven other sports for the slot on the 2020 Games."

As for all the criticism from the United States and elsewhere? Before the London 2012 Games the IOC dealt with the feral British press for seven years. So this, too, shall pass.

"We knew even before the decision was taken," Rogge said, "whatever sport would not be included in the core program would lead to criticism from the supporters of that sport."

IOC throws wrestling to the mat

In Sydney in 2000, who can forget Rulon Gardner beating the Russian man-mountain, Alexander Karelin, for gold? Or in Beijing in 2008, the brilliance of Henry Cejudo, who came from the humblest of beginnings to claim gold?

Or last summer in London, the awesome ferocity of Jordan Burroughs? He had said beforehand that nothing was going to get in his way of his gold medal, and nothing did.

Wrestling has offered up so many compelling gold-medal memories  at the Olympics, in particular for the U.S. team.

And that's very likely what they'll be going forward: memories.

The International Olympic Committee's policy-making executive board, in what some viewed as a surprise, moved Tuesday to cut wrestling from the 2020 Summer Games as part of a wide-ranging review of all the sports on the program.

It's a surprise only to those who don't understand the way the IOC works.

"This is a process of renewing and renovating the program for the Olympics," the IOC spokesman, Mark Adams, said at a news conference. "In the view of the executive board, this was the best program for the Olympic Games in 2020. It's not a case of what's wrong with wrestling. It's what's right with the 25 core sports."

Adams, as ever, is being diplomatic.

In fact, it's totally what's wrong with wrestling, and in particular its international governing body, which goes by the acronym FILA. Otherwise, the sport wouldn't have been cut. That's just common sense.

The IOC move came as part of a mandate to cut one sport to get to a "core" program of 25 sports. One sport of the 26 from London last summer had to go. Those were the rules.

Two sports were most at risk, as everyone inside IOC circles has known for weeks: modern pentathlon and wrestling.

All the sports on the program were subjected to a questionnaire from the IOC program commission purporting to analyze 39 different factors: TV ratings, ticket sales, a sport's anti-doping policies, gender issues, global participation and more.

The questionnaire did not include official rankings. It did not include recommendations.

Even so, it was abundantly clear that pentathlon was No. 1 on the hit list and wrestling No. 2.

Why?

Pentathlon has been at risk ever since the IOC's Mexico City session in 2002. The sport involves five different disciplines -- fencing, horseback riding, shooting, swimming and running -- and, obviously, there just aren't that many people in any country who do that. But it traces itself back to the founder of the modern Games, the French Baron Pierre de Coubertin, and has waged a clever political campaign, instituting just enough modern touches, like the use of laser pistols instead of real guns, for instance.

Wrestling brought women into its sport at the Athens Games in 2004. It also has reconfigured some weight classes. But aside from those developments, it was pretty much the same as it ever had been -- pretty much the same as it had been in the ancient Games in Greece way back when. Ticket sales in London lagged, when virtually every other sport was a sell-out, a clear sign something was amiss.

Thus, heading into Tuesday's board meeting, the decision would be -- as usual -- subject to politics, conflict of interest, emotion and sentiment.

This is the way the IOC works. It may or may not make sense to outsiders that, for instance, Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr., a first vice president of the modern pentathlon union, sits on the executive board while the fate of modern pentathlon is being decided.

But this is the way it is.

The IOC voted Tuesday by secret ballot. We will never know whether Samaranch Jr. voted. Frankly, it doesn't matter.

What matters is that he is matters. The proof of that is his eminently convincing win last summer at the IOC session in London when he was elected to the board.

As an aside, it's early in the race for the 2020 Summer Games -- the vote won't be until September -- but Tuesday might be an intriguing indicator.  Madrid is, of course, one of the three cities in the race, along with Tokyo and Istanbul, and Samaranch Jr. is a key player for Madrid.

And pentathlon. And pentathlon surely proved to have political influence within the IOC.

The pentathlon World Cup next week in Palm Springs, Calif. -- featuring five Olympic medalists from London, including both the men's and women's gold medalists, now promises to be a celebration -- not a dirge.

"We are very open but we know where we have to go together," Klaus Schormann, the president of the modern pentathlon federation, said in a telephone interview from Germany.

Taekwondo -- seemingly forever battling for its place on the program -- also showed political smarts. A few days ago, IOC president Jacques Rogge traveled to Korea, where taekwondo was developed. Though the sport's medals were spread among a number of nations at the London Games, it still carries enormous prestige in Seoul, and when IOC president Jacques Rogge held a personal meeting with South Korea president-elect Park Geun Hye, what was one of the things she told him: keep taekwondo in the Games, please.

What was FILA's political strategy? Nothing, apparently.

Who was advocating inside the IOC board for wrestling? No one, seemingly -- of all the biggest wrestling countries, none have seats on the IOC board.

A belated, after-the-vote statement on the FILA website declared that it was "greatly astonished" by the IOC action and would take "all necessary measures" to try to get back on the program.

"Greatly astonished"? Like gambling in the movie, "Casablanca." Shocking, just shocking.

At the top of the FILA website -- it's Feb. 13, mind you -- the page greets you with "Season's Greetings!" and best wishes for a "peaceful and successful New Year 2013!" This is an international federation that just isn't up to speed.

The way this works now is that wrestling will join seven other sports -- the likes of wushu, squash, baseball and softball -- in trying to get onto the program for 2020.

Bluntly, the IOC move Tuesday probably signals the end for baseball and softball, which are trying to get back on as one entity, not two.

If the IOC is going to let any one sport back on, it might -- stress, might -- be wrestling. "I would have to think the IOC made an uninformed decision," Jim Scherr, the former USOC chief executive officer and Olympic wrestler (fifth place at the 1988 Seoul Games), said Tuesday, urging reconsideration.

The current USOC chief executive, Scott Blackmun, said in a statement: "We knew that today would be a tough day for American athletes competing in whatever sport was identified by the IOC Executive Board.

"Given the history and tradition of wrestling, and its popularity and universality, we were surprised when the decision was announced. It is important to remember that today's action is a recommendation, and we hope that there will be a meaningful opportunity to discuss the important role that wrestling plays in the sports landscape both in the United States and around the world. In the meantime, we will fully support USA Wrestling and its athletes."

To get back on the program now, though, the fact is wrestling faces considerable odds. This, too, is the way the IOC works.

Ligety wins second gold at 2013 alpine worlds

The last time Ted Ligety won what in alpine ski racing is now called the super-combined event  -- a race with downhill and slalom events -- was so long ago it was simply called the combined. Seven long years.

That was the Torino 2006 Winter Olympics.

He came through again Monday, and again on the big stage, at skiing's 2013 world championships in Schladming, Austria.

Truthfully, Ligety didn't just win, he dominated. The daylight downhill run left him standing sixth, in solid position to attack. Then, under the lights at night, he executed a slalom run that was both on-edge and safe to win it all by a whopping 1.15 seconds over Ivica Kostelic of Croatia. Austria's Romed Baumann finished another two-hundredths behind for third.

Ligety's total winning time: 2 minutes, 56.96 seconds. The downhill portion: 2:02.10; the slalom, 54.86 seconds.

Ligety's victory marked his second title at the 2013 worlds. He won the super-G last Friday.

Neither is considered his best event. That would be the giant slalom, which will be run this coming Friday. Ligety is widely viewed as the favorite in that event, having won four of five giant slalom races on the World Cup tour this season. He is a three-time World Cup giant slalom season champion.

Obviously, Ligety is on a huge confidence and momentum roll, the kind that sets you up to be -- at least on the men's side -- The Face of the U.S. Ski Team at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

Which, frankly, is at it should be.

That's no disrespect to any of the other guys on the U.S. team, in particular Bode Miller, who is taking this year off to let a knee heal. None whatsoever. If Bode comes back strong, all's the better. No one -- that's no one in the world, not just anyone in the United States -- has Bode's on-ski style and verve.

That said, Ligety is no longer the 21-year-old surprise of the 2006 Torino Games.

Sochi would be Ligety's third Olympics, and he is by now a team leader and proven big-time competitor. Now, too, Ligety is world champion in three different events -- giant slalom at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, in 2011, and super-G and super-combined in 2013. Ligety also won bronze in the giant slalom at the world championships at Val d'Isere, France, in 2009.

Plus, in Sochi, Ligety would have something to prove, believe it or not.

His gold in the combined in Torino is his only Olympic medal. He was shut out in Vancouver in 2010.

Miller is a multiple Olympic medalist, in Vancouver and in Salt Lake City in 2002, and at the worlds did what Ligety has now done -- win two golds at the same world championships. He did it twice, in fact, in Bormio, Italy, in 2005 (downhill and super-G) and St. Moritz, Switzerland, in 2003 (giant slalom and combined).

That kind of range marks you as a great all-around skier.

Ligety has never -- again, never -- wanted to be considered as a guy who only skis the giant slalom.

"I never wanted to be a specialist," Ligety said Monday, adding a moment later, "To have three world championships in three different events is pretty surreal -- it's a pretty cool feeling."

When Miller won his combined titles, and when Ligety won the combined at the Olympics in 2006, the combined was one downhill and two slaloms. Now the super-combined is one downhill and one slalom.

The way Ligety positioned himself to win Monday speaks volumes about his maturity and race savvy.

Ligety said he had been puzzling over how to best ski the downhill. It wasn't so much that the mountain was so treacherous. In fact, it was comparatively easy. The challenge was finding speed -- meaning the right line.

In the race itself, he figured it out, finishing sixth. There are times when sixth can, as Ligety later called it, prove "awesome." This was one of those times, because he was less than a second out of first, behind Austria's Baumann, Norway's Aksel Lund Svindal, Italy's Christof Innerhofer, France's Adrien Theaux and another Italian, Dominik Paris -- guys who, with the exception of Svindal, are generally more known for speed than technical slalom skill.

Ligety's concern, as he explained after the downhill, was Kostelic, in 10th, and Austria's Benjamin Raich, in 12th.

Svindal, Innerhofer and Theaux all failed to finish the slalom. Raich went out, too. Paris would finish ninth.

Kostelic ran before Ligety, taking the lead -- but, in skiing the night leg in 55.36 seconds, gave Ligety a huge opening. It's not that Kostelic was particularly slow. It's just that he could have been faster. Which Ligety knew.

"I just tried to ski as smart as I can," Ligety said moments after skiing the field's second-fastest run of the night, that 54.86, pumping his fists after crossing the finish line, knowing he had the race won. "I'm not always that smart in slalom. I just tried to have a solid run the whole way down and not try to make too many mistakes.

"To see the green light at the bottom," meaning first place,"was a really sweet feeling."

Ligety wins first-ever super-G

When the Austrians throw a ski party, make no mistake. It's great. They're super-glad to welcome friends and visitors. But they expect, indeed demand, victory. Alpine racing in Austria is like the NFL in the United States. It's what they do. It doesn't get any bigger. It's why, at the opening ceremony of the world championships a couple days ago in Schladming, the Herminator -- famed racer Hermann Maier -- shared the stage with the Terminator, Arnold Schwarzenneger, the Austrian-born actor and former California governor.

After two races at the worlds, the Austrians are oh-for-six while the U.S Ski Team, capped by Ted Ligety's stunning win Wednesday in the super-G, already has two medals. Julia Mancuso took third Tuesday in the women's super-G.

There are many races yet to go at these championships. But even with the season-ending injury that Lindsey Vonn suffered Tuesday, even with Bode Miller taking a little time off, let there be no doubt:

The U.S. team is deep and capable, and building with purpose toward the Sochi 2014 Games, which start in exactly one year.

Ligety's winning time, in front of a crowd of 24,000 people: 1:23.96. France's Gauthier De Tessieres -- a late starter, replacing an injured teammate -- took a surprise second, 20-hundredths of a second back. Norway's Aksel Lund Svindal, winner of three of four World Cup super-Gs this season, was third, another two-hundredths back.

American Thomas Biesemeyer finished 13th; Ryan Cochran-Siegle, after starting 25th, finished 15th.

Another American, Andrew Weibrecht, bronze medalist in the super-G at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, was challenging for a medal but missed a gate near the end.

"Weibrecht's skiing today was awesome -- fantastic skiing," U.S. head coach Sasha Rearick said afterward. "Unfortunately, he got a little bit unlucky on one turn there at the bottom.

"Biesemeyer did a great job coming back from injury to get into the points [meaning the World Cup start list] and RCS, starting in the back -- where people had no chance -- he skied great, excellent execution. For a 21-year-old kid to do that, here at the world champs, is really, really fun to see. Awesome momentum-building."

As for Ligety: the victory marked his first super-G win, ever.

At any race level.

This from a skier who is an Olympic gold-medalist in the combined (2006), world champion in the giant slalom (2011) and three-time World Cup season GS title winner.

This season, Ligety had continued his giant slalom dominance -- he leads the GS points race by 125, over Austria's Marcel Hirscher -- but had stepped up his game in other disciplines, super-G in particular, with a sixth at Kitzbühel and two fourth-place finishes.

He had written on his blog last week about the course at Schladming, "I'm one of the better guys in super-G, and that super-G hill in Schladming is steep and technical, giving me a very good chance of medaling."

Just to show you how difficult the alpine game can be, however, it's not just that the course is steep and technical, or that the light can be flat, which it was Wednesday -- there are variables the real pros, like Ligety, have to learn to master.

The course Wednesday featured 42 gates. Who set the course? Norway coach Tron Moger. He also fixed the gates when Svindal won the super-G in Val Gardena, Italy, in December.

Svindal later said, as Associated Press reported, "I took a lot of risks and had a small mistake at the end. The conditions were OK but not ideal. With this [low] light, you don't see the bumps. I am satisfied. Ted did just great."

What Ligety did seems risky but actually makes total sense. He used his giant slalom skills to shave time at the bottom, where it was steeper. That's where he won the race.

"The bottom I knew I could make up time -- it suited my technique," Ligety said. "I took a lot of risk. It was a good day."

Twelve years ago, the Austrians thought they had the super-G wired at the 2001 world championships in their backyard, in St. Anton. American Daron Rahlves came in and won it.

"Ted has been skiing great. All season he has been charging -- clean skiing and with the confidence to take it down the hill at super-G speeds," Rearick said, adding a moment later, "We had a great training camp leading into here. He came in skiing with confidence and executed great skiing. When you put those things together -- why not?"

Lindsey Vonn's new challenge

Lindsey Vonn ripped up her right knee Tuesday skiing in a race marred by fog and delays at the alpine skiing world championships in Schladming, Austria, and immediately -- for emphasis, immediately -- the clock started ticking. The opening ceremony of the Sochi Winter Olympics will kick off one year and two days from Tuesday.

The logical, reasonable question is whether the greatest skier America has ever produced -- indeed, the star expected to be the brightest U.S. light at the 2014 Winter Games -- will be ready to race next February.

Vonn is not only the defending Olympic gold medalist in downhill and bronze medalist in super-G. She is four times the World Cup overall title winner. She has 59 career World Cup victories, second-most of all time among female racers.

She is, moreover, glamorous and well-spoken and eager to push her sport forward into the mainstream, gracing magazine covers and in demand as a celebrity endorser.

Obviously, no one can predict the future.

But one would be foolish to bet against Lindsey Vonn.

It's worth re-tracing now the arc of her career, in particular her singular penchant for spectacular falls and other -- sometimes bizarre -- injuries and equally amazing comebacks. And the mental toughness she has displayed, time and again.

She once said, "When someone tells you that you can't do something, all you want to do is prove them wrong. I feel like when I crash, whether I'm injured or not, I want to come back even stronger and prove to myself I can do it. Maybe it is because I am so stubborn.

"I feel like when you do have injuries there's always a tendency to lack confidence. People don't think you can do what you did before or you can compete at your best. But I take it as a challenge to keep pushing myself even harder. Because unless I can't walk I'm going to be racing."

Tuesday's super-G at Schladming, the first race of the 2013 alpine worlds, was delayed 14 times and ultimately called after 36 racers, only 30 finishing. Tina Maze of Slovenia won; Julia Mancuso of the U.S. took third, the fifth world championships medal of her career, and said it was one of her hardest races ever.

Vonn led the race after the first split; she had dropped back 12-hundredths at the second; she never made it to the third. Instead, she went into a jump slightly off-balance and landed wrong; her right ski came off as she pitched forwarded and somersaulted out, skidding down the snow. She was helicoptered off the course -- standard procedure.

The U.S. Ski Team later issued a statement saying Vonn had torn her anterior cruciate and medial collateral ligaments and sustained a broken bone, a tibial fracture. It also said she would miss the rest of this season but "is expected to return to racing" for the next World Cup season and the 2014 Olympics.

Speaking generally, the ACL is likely to be the big deal -- probably six to eight months, minimum, before she's back on skis. The MCL and fracture would, relatively speaking, typically be lesser concerns.

The real issue, of course, is Vonn's state of mind once her knee is back together.

This, though, is where she already has genuinely has set herself apart.

This season, for instance, she was hospitalized in November for an intestinal illness. She came back not even two weeks later to win two downhills and a super-G in Lake Louise, Canada. Saying she still wasn't feeling great, she took a break in mid-December. She then won a downhill Jan. 19 in Italy and a giant slalom Jan. 26 in Slovenia, and had come to the world championships saying she was feeling great.

A few days before the 2011 world championships in Germany, she suffered a concussion. Racing when she knew she was not 100 percent, she took second in the downhill.

Before the 2010 Games, she suffered a shin bruise so severe it hurt just to put on her ski boot. That one she helped cure with special cheese. Really. She raced in Vancouver, and became the first American woman to win the Olympic downhill.

At the 2009 world championships in France, celebrating her victory in the downhill, she sliced the tendon on her right thumb grabbing for a bottle of celebratory champagne. She would need surgery to fix the tendon. She duct-taped her hand to her ski pole and raced week after week; that was one of the seasons she won the overall World Cup title.

At Lake Louise in December of 2009, racing a downhill in a snowfall, her knee smacked her chin, cutting her tongue. She almost passed out. She was spitting up blood and photos of her, bloodied, flashed around the world. She won the race by more than half a second.

At the Olympics in Torino in 2006, she endured a crash training for the downhill, slamming into the icy-hard snow at roughly 70 mph. There were fears she would be paralyzed. She got out of her hospital bed and finished eighth.

Vonn has spoken about how that episode in Torino made her fully realize how much she loved racing.

Now she has yet another challenge.

While she's in rehab, it's perhaps worth keeping in mind something else she also once said: "I mean, everyone falls. That's just life. Whether it's skiing or anything else. It's how you pick yourself back up that defines who you are … And I am never, ever going to give up."

Rogge's final months -- and what's next

SEOUL -- Jacques Rogge has been president of the International Olympic Committee for nearly 12 years. He has held hundreds, if not thousands, of news conferences and briefings. He presided over another one Friday at a downtown hotel as the rain came down hard and cold here in Seoul, reporters and camera crews shaking off the water like poodles after a walk, and then came the usual breathless questioning from some of the local reporters met by the president's calm and measured responses, a scene from a real-life movie that has played out before many, many times.

It was odd in its way to think that this set piece will soon be coming to an end. But these are indeed the final months of Rogge's presidency; he steps down at the IOC session in Argentina in September. There the IOC will choose his successor.

And while there wasn't any breaking news Friday -- there typically isn't at a standard-issue IOC press conference, only clues to what's really going on -- what was plainly and powerfully evident is that this year, 2013, holds the potential to re-shape the Olympic movement in far-reaching ways.

At issue are fundamental philosophies about where the IOC has been, is now and is going amid three decisive reckonings: what sports will be included at the Summer Games, what city will play host to the Games in 2020 and who will be the next president.

Given the way the IOC presidency works -- an eight-year term followed by another, shorter term of four more years -- the vote for Rogge's successor is essentially a once-in-a-generation event. Already in 2013, it frames the backdrop to most everything of significance happening in Olympic circles, even if subtly.

In two weeks, the IOC executive board, meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, will review the 26 sports that appeared on the London 2012 program, charged with cutting one to get to a "core" of 25.

Then -- as the year goes on, and even trying to describe the process is complicated -- it's possible the IOC will add sports. Or not.

Baseball and softball, for instance, which are trying to get back in as one entity, not two, will learn whether the basics of interpersonal dynamics ultimately will prove more potent than the merits of either sport.

Everyone knows it can sometimes be incredibly hard to admit you made a mistake, if indeed you did. Would an IOC that under Rogge's watch kicked both out be tempted now to double back and say, oh, we get it -- now we are going to let them back in?

As the February executive board meeting approaches, meanwhile, rumors have been increasingly fevered about which of the 26 sports might be the one left out.

Track and field, swimming and sailing -- Rogge competed in the Games as a sailor -- would seem to have nothing to worry about.

That said, modern pentathlon has been fighting to keep its place for years. It sparked a huge debate that consumed the IOC session in Mexico City in 2002. Now? The sport has undertaken a series of initiatives to make it easier to follow. Yet any realist can see that while the IOC is trying to reach out to a younger audience, and there are taekwondo gyms on seemingly every other block with little kids running around in their colored belts, a modern pentathlon enthusiast with a gun, a sword, a horse, a swimsuit and a pair of running shoes would be hard-pressed indeed to find a place to practice all its pieces.

Meanwhile, in September, the IOC will choose Madrid, Istanbul or Tokyo to be its 2020 Summer Games site. The process ramps up next month with visits by an evaluation commission to all three.

Which leads, in a circular way perhaps but inevitably, to the presidential campaign.

When Rogge took office, in July 2001, the IOC was still feeling its way after the Salt Lake City corruption scandal. The key element in a 50-point reform plan, passed in December 1999, bans the roughly 100 members from visiting cities bidding for the Games.

Rogge has been a vocal proponent for that rule. It seems to have prevented a recurrence of what happened in Salt Lake -- where bidders showered the members with inducements -- from happening elsewhere.

On the other hand, there's also the argument that rule fundamentally says to the members, many of whom are important personalities in their own countries: we don't trust you.

The way the process works now is that the evaluation commission undertakes four-day visits to each city and then produces a report. The full IOC meets a few months before the vote to go over the report and hear from the bid cities. Then they get together again a few months later, for the vote itself. The members vote after having the report available to read (which some don't), watching videos (maybe, if they're interesting) and taking in the presentations from the bid cities.

This for a process that costs hundreds of millions of dollars and is worth billions to the winning city and nation.

With great power comes great responsibility, goes the saying. Certainly the IOC wields enormous power. But does the bid city process -- as it is now -- assign to the members meaningful responsibility?

Thomas Bach of Germany is widely considered the leading presidential candidate. Ser Miang Ng of Singapore might well prove a strong challenger. And Richard Carrion of Puerto Rico has shown business skills to help keep the IOC strong in the global economic downturn.

The smart candidate, if he were to be moving around the world, meeting with other IOC members, listening to their observations, would surely hear some number of them say perhaps the time has come to look anew at the way things work. A lot of time has passed. No one is going back to Salt Lake City anytime soon.

Pyeongchang was selected the 2018 Winter Games host in 2011. Intriguingly, Rogge saw the place with his own eyes for the very first time this week. Simply put, there is no substitute for seeing something yourself.

Rogge said of Pyeongchang, "I had of course seen it in the bid book," adding, "When you see it in reality, you have another view. It is state of the art."

Which is what the IOC, of course, aspires to be.

South Korea's "truly impressive" way

JINCHEON, South Korea -- Just last week, the U.S. Olympic Committee announced a campaign to expand and re-design its 35-acre campus in Colorado Springs, Colo., the centerpiece a training facility to be named in honor of the late U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, who wrote the 1978 law that made the USOC what it is now. The facility in Colorado Springs, a long time ago an Air Force base, is patently in need of an upgrade. It opened for Olympic business in 1977. Even so, the federal government isn't throwing money at the problem; because of that 1978 law, the USOC must support itself. Now comes the job of actually finding the dollars for that renovation.

And then there's the South Korean way. It's not -- repeat, not -- the American way, and this is not to suppose that it should be.

But in the Korean way are lessons about the will to succeed.

And that -- that is something not only to appreciate but emulate.

And not just for Americans. For everyone anywhere in the world.

On a brilliant Thursday morning, the president of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, was among those getting a first-hand look at the Jincheon National Training Center -- and what was made abundantly clear is that the Koreans have, with almost no one paying any attention, built a world-class facility from scratch with the idea of becoming really, really good in pretty much every sport on the Olympic program.

And soon.

No one ever accused the Koreans of lacking ambition and drive.

In this instance, they combined those qualities with humility -- the facility has been built with almost no fanfare -- and fantastic business sense, all with one goal in mind, as the slogan on the brochure all about the training center says: "To the world, be the best."

Which means, more or less, let's go out there and get the job done.

There's evidence already that this might just work.

Construction at Jincheon, about 60 miles southeast of Seoul, began in 2005. The facility opened in 2011, including a shooting range that Korean Olympic Committee officials proudly walked Rogge and other IOC officials through on Thursday.

At the 2008 Beijing Games -- that is, before the Jincheon facility opened -- the Koreans took two medals in shooting. Both were won by Jong Oh Jin, who is a supreme marksman; he had won two silvers in Athens in 2004.

In London, after training at Jincheon, Korean shooters won five medals, three gold and two silvers. That was the best of any nation.

Jin won two golds, in 10- and 50-meter air pistol. Two other Korean men took silver: Young Rae Choi  in the 50-meter air pistol, Jong Hyun Kim in the 50-meter rifle three-position event. One Korean woman won gold: Jang Mi Kim, in the 25-meter pistol.

Along with the shooting range, the complex now holds a swim center; indoor and outdoor tennis courts; a track and field complex as well as a five-kilometer cross-country course through the surrounding hills; baseball and softball fields (if they ever return to the Games); a killer weight room; a dorm that holds 356 athletes; an auditorium; a library; and a 264-seat cafeteria that everyone brags serves pretty much the best lunch in South Korea.

All of that -- and that's just Phase One.

Construction on Phase Two of the complex is underway; it's due to be finished in 2017. It will include a velodrome; an ice rink; a rugby field; a golf complex; an archery site; facilities for boxing, taekwondo, judo, weightlifting, fencing, wrestling, gymnastics, table tennis, handball, badminton and more.

More being the likes of squash and wushu -- sports vying to be on the Olympic program.

More also being more dorms and administrative offices. Ultimately, the intent is to have the opportunity for hundreds more athletes to live here.

Total size of the complex: 400 acres.

Total cost, through 2017, and for this kind of complex it's a bargain: $560 million.

It's not, by the way, that the Koreans didn't already have an Olympic training ground. Jincheon is a second. The first, Taeneung National Training Center, is in northern Seoul.

In remarks at that auditorium, the head of the Korean Olympic Committee, Y.S. Park, said the idea at Jincheon was to create "one of the best training environments … in the world."

These years are a special time for the Olympic movement in South Korea. After bidding -- and failing twice -- the Koreans in 2011 won the right to stage the 2018 Winter Games, in Pyeongchang. The Winter Special Olympics are going on there right now. The 2014 Asian Games will be held in Incheon; the 2015 University Games in Gwangju.

Here in South Korea, they can boast of both government and corporate support.

And now this facility.

Rogge followed Park to the stage Thursday at the auditorium. He got it. He said -- because what else could a reasonable person say -- the place is, indeed, "truly impressive."

Pyeongchang 2018: taking Korea to the next level

SEOUL -- Amazing how time really does fly. It will be 25 years this summer that Seoul played host to the 1988 Summer Games. People like to talk about the Barcelona miracle, about how the 1992 Olympics made Barcelona the hot spot tourist destination it is now. And that's true enough. But four years before, those 1988 Games did something profoundly amazing. They made South Korea a modern nation.

Or -- more important -- they made everyone everywhere think South Korea was the modern nation it was becoming, and surely is today.

Here Wednesday, they signed a formal marketing agreement to help fund the first Winter Games to be staged in South Korea -- five years from now, in 2018, in the mountains south of Seoul, in a hamlet called Pyeongchang.

Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee, signed the agreement with the head of the Pyeongchang 2018 organizing committee, Jin Sun Kim.

The signing of such an agreement marks the moment, as Rogge noted in his remarks at a downtown hotel, that local organizers "truly take ownership of their promotional and financial destiny."

And -- in this instance -- so much more.

Because for South Korea, these 2018 Games mean so much more.

The agreement itself, which Kim in his remarks called "critical and meaningful," is a common-sense notion. It gives the Pyeongchang 2018 committee exclusive Olympic marketing rights in South Korea until 2020; the committee takes those rights over from the Korean Olympic Committee.

For the KOC, it's a win-win. It gets $10 million a year for the next seven years, up from $6 million or so a year it's generating now in sponsorships.

Pyeongchang 2018 needs the rights to raise revenue to meet its $2.1 billion operating budget.

Wednesday's agreement sets a formidable target, about $1.1 billion. That's traditionally Summer Games-style revenue.

And that ambitious goal was put out there even as the world remains largely mired in an economic downturn not seen in decades.

Rogge, however, said the IOC is "confident" the Koreans have "everything in place" to be "highly successful in [their] endeavors."

For his part, Kim said, "Now let me take this opportunity to encourage the country's leading companies as well as promising small and medium-sized businesses to take part in the historic 2018 Pyeongchang Olympic Games through its Olympic sponsorship program," adding a moment later that the committee, which goes by the acronym POCOG, is ready for "action."

Later, when speaking to a small group of reporters and asked whether now is indeed a good time to go to market, Kim said of the economic downturn, "Our analysis is that those conditions will get better."

Pyeongchang was elected in 2011 on its third try, coming up just shy for both 2014 and 2010. Kim served as governor of Gangwon province, where Pyeongchang is located, and was intimately involved with those first two bids; he was of course a familiar figure for the winning campaign, too. He has, among other responsibilities over his career, been a special Korean ambassador and a presidential advisor.

This nation recently held elections -- Geun Hye Park will take office Feb. 25, South Korea's first female president -- and Kim is heading up preparations for the inauguration, laughingly calling that -- still speaking through a translator -- a "second job."

This is a man who, for sure, knows how certain things get done, and that is absolutely a compliment.

This is a man who also, over the years, has learned considerably more English than many people might think he knows. Which is a great talent.

In his conversation late Wednesday afternoon with the small group of reporters, the respected British correspondent David Miller started to ask Kim about the impact of those 1988 Games.

Miller, launching into his question -- they had a "huge impact on Korea diplomatically, politically …"

At which point Kim interrupted, speaking in English: "… socially, culturally."

Miller, pausing to note the intriguing cut-in and then resuming: "What do you think will be the contribution of [the Pyeongchang 2018 Games] to the global perception of Korea outside the business of sport, to promote the global awareness of Korea?"

If there was ever someone ready to take that question, here was someone with context, perspective and background.

What these Games are not so much about, Kim made plain, was world peace. He didn't say this, because he is far too practiced and diplomatic, but here's the reality: the Pyeongchang bids that didn't win focused on peace on the Korean peninsula in our time -- and look at the outcome.

He did say at one point Wednesday, "We would like to send the message of peace to the international community … through sports and through the Games," adding, "We will work hard on realizing this vision." At the same time, he noted that right now, referring to the North, "There is no dialogue."

In part, the Games are of course about "new horizons," the winning 2018 tagline, the message of expanding winter sports throughout Asia.

But -- and again, so much more.

This marketing agreement was signed even as South Korea put a satellite into orbit Wednesday for the very first time. Ju Ho Lee, the country's minister for education, science and technology, appearing on a nationally broadcast news conference, and using the country's formal name, said with excitement and pride, "Students and youths! The Republic of Korea is expanding around the world and toward space!"

"As you said," Kim began, looking at Miller, speaking once more in Korean, "because of the 1988 Olympic Games, people around the world -- the international community -- came to know about Korea. The Games had a great impact on our society -- economically, politically and culturally. Altogether, it was a great opportunity to upgrade our nation.

"The 2018 Pyeongchang Olympic Games will be held 30 years after the Seoul Olympic Games. I believe for the nation of Korea that will mean the completion of the Olympic process."

He added a moment later, "Coming in 2018, I believe and I hope that South Korea will enter the [world's] advanced economies. I believe Pyeongchang 2018 will be a symbolic event for Korea to be taken to the next level once again in the manner of the Seoul 1988 Olympic Games."

Special Olympics send-off: feeling the joy

Next week, there's a super little event down in New Orleans that will occupy thousands of reporters, camera crews and beignet-consuming, bead-throwing party-goers. You won't be able to escape it. Meanwhile, over on the other side of the world, in Pyeongchang, South Korea, another major sports event will be going on, too. If you read anything about it in your local newspaper, however, it's likely to be buried back in the very back pages. It's unlikely to command a fraction of the television time, if that, that Ray Lewis or Colin Kaepernick will.

Jim and John Harbaugh against one another for Vince Lombardi's trophy makes for a great tale, for sure. But you want a story? On display Thursday night at a Los Angeles hotel were  hundreds  -- literally -- of  stories of pride, perseverance, dedication, discipline and overcoming the odds.

Indeed, it was all genuine emotion and heartfelt enthusiasm as the 150 Special Olympics athletes of Team USA made their way down a red-carpet introduction  before a send-off dinner.

"To see the joy -- it makes me want to cry," said Julie Foudy, the soccer star turned television analyst, who was on hand to help the athletes cruise the carpet.

"And," she said, "scream, 'U-S-A!'"

Some 2,300 Special Olympics athletes from more than 110 nations are due to compete in Pyeongchang in seven sports: alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, snowboarding, snowshoeing, short-track speedskating, figure skating, floor hockey and the demonstration sport of floorball.

Organizers expect perhaps 15,000 fans and family to attend.

Just like the Olympic Games, the Special Olympics run on a two-year cycle. The 2015 Special Olympics World Summer Games will be held in Los Angeles.

In Pyeongchang, International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge is due to attend some of the Special Olympics action while checking out some of the already-built venues for the 2018 Winter Games; he will be joined by Gunilla Lindberg, head of the IOC coordination commission for the 2018 Games. They are set to be briefed by, among others, Pyeongchang 2018 chief Jin Sun Kim.

Also traveling to Korea with Rogge are the IOC director general, Christophe de Kepper, as well as IOC Games executive director Gilbert Felli and sports director Christophe Dubi.

Rogge is also due Feb. 1 to meet with South Korea's president-elect, Geun Hye Park.

That's obviously big stuff.

But one wonders -- bigger, really, than what awaits, say, U.S. snowboarders Daina Shilts, 22, of Neillsville, Wis., or Chase Lodder, 25, of Salt Lake City?

Perhaps more than anything, the Special Olympics is about breaking down stereotypes. Yes, they rip it on snowboards at the Special Olympics World Winter Games, and in disciplines such as slalom, giant slalom and super-G.

"A lot of people don't know that," Lodder, who has been boarding for five years, said.

"When I work at Home Depot and I tell them I am in the Special Olympics," he said, a smile across his face, "they are really supportive. They are really good about it."

Shilts -- the others uniformly said she was fastest on the American team -- has been snowboarding for six years.

At first, she said of learning to ride, "It was rough. It was hard." She quickly added, "But if a sport is not hard, it's not a sport."

A substitute aide for special-needs children, Shilts said this would be her first trip overseas. "I just say this will be challenging and fun and new and exciting," she said.

And one other thing. She said, "I'm going to win."