Subject: IN NORWAY, AND READY TO COVER ALL THAT'S TRULY IMPORTANT

(This is the first of a series of Olympic bonus columns by Dave.)

	LILLEHAMMER, Norway -- I have located Norway. It turns out
to be right next to, but different from, Sweden. Also I'm pretty
sure that Finland is around here someplace.
	Getting here was not easy. My flight from New York to Oslo
sat on the ground at Kennedy Airport for THREE AND A HALF HOURS
while the pilot came up with a series of increasingly lame excuses
for the delay: He was waiting for connecting passengers; the dog
ate his flight plan; vandals had stolen the landing gear; etc. I
believe that the pilot was actually stalling because he didn't
know for sure where Norway was. I bet that, between announcements,
he and his flight crew were frantically thumbing through volume
"N" of the World Book Encyclopedia, looking for the Norway
section. ("Here it is! It's an inert gas!" "No, you idiot!
That's 'nitrogen'!")
	But eventually they figured it out, and we took off and
found Norway, which is a darned good thing because the U.S.
bobsled team was on our flight. Most of the team members were
large, muscular individuals. You need to be big and strong for
this event, because at the beginning of the bobsled run you have
to push the sled hard and get it going very fast, and then, just
as the sled starts hurtling down the steep, icy, treacherous track
at speeds upwards of 80 mph, you have to -- in one smooth, fluid
motion -- let go of the sled and fall down.
	At least that's what I would do. The team members,
however, actually get INTO the sled, where they are jammed
together in a tiny, uncomfortable space, very similar to the seat
I occupied during the 247-hour flight from New York to Oslo,
except without the beverage-cart service.
	Speaking of which, I noted that one of the bobsled team
members had several rum drinks. I pointed this out to veteran
sportswriter Dave Kindred.
	"It's OK," Kindred said. "He doesn't steer."
	Anyway, we finally arrived in Norway. It is a Nordic
country, defined, technically, as "a country where they have a
funny little diagonal line going through the letter 'O.'"  Not
counting reindeer and fish, Norway's population is very small. I
probably met most of the residents right at the airport, and they
all seem very nice. They also speak excellent English, a fact that
makes Norway seem quite foreign to me, inasmuch as I live in
Miami.
	As for the country itself, if I were to describe it in one
word, that word would be "cold." There is snow all over the
place. I don't wish to be critical of the Olympic Committee, but
in my opinion, when you're planning a major event such as the
Winter Olympics, with people coming from all over the world, it
makes a lot more sense to hold it in a warmer climate, or during
the summer.
	But that is water over the dam (or, as we say in Norway,
"Vatter uver da vatterholderbakker,,). We are here now, and we
are going to make the best of it. Besides, there are many exciting
stories to cover, including:
	1. Tonya Harding.
	2. The U.S. speed skaters, and what they think about Tonya
Harding.
	3. Norway's emergence as a modern industrial nation, and
whether this is fair to Tonya Harding.
	I plan to cover all these stories and more in the days
ahead. Unless this would require me to go outside.

(C) 1994 THE MIAMI HERALD
DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

