The 2002 Winter Paralympic Games were much more than a footnote to the Olympics: The events were exciting to watch and the athletes were an inspiration.
After the high-strung crowds, highly intense competition and hyperactivity of the Olympics, the Paralympics were a good opportunity for spectators to get life back into perspective.
It was impressive to watch Olympic boarders, skiers, skaters and hockey players break records and set new standards in their sports. But their accomplishments paled when compared with what men and women with severe physical challenges were able to do.
SLED HOCKEY: Matt Coppens walked out of the E Center after the U.S. Paralympic sled hockey team's penultimate win flashing a huge smile and a badge.
The one-time Illinois emergency services officer wore a royal blue Marker jacket with the label still dangling from the sleeve and a Utah Olympic Public Safety Command patch on the shoulder. The gifts were courtesy of some Utah firefighters the disabled hockey player met during the 2002 Paralympic Games.
Coppens, whose legs were severed in 1994 when a vehicle rammed him as he fetched orange cones out of the trunk of his patrol car, says he still feels like a member of the law enforcement brotherhood though he's no longer on duty.
"And," he said, "these guys have proven that to me."
The next night, Coppens and his sled hockey fraternity left the E Center with gold medals draped around their necks, proving it is possible to pick one's self off the mat in the face of adversity.
Team USA defeated Team Norway in a dramatic 4-3 shootout last Friday night before a Paralympic record crowd of 8,315. The marathon game was decided when goalie Manuel Guerra Jr. forced Norway's last shot wide of the net.
The Americans went into the Paralympics seeded last among the six teams but unexpectedly stormed through the round-robin tournament, outscoring opponents 26-6.
"If people don't believe now . . . We went from worst to first. We're the best in the world in sled hockey right now," said Kip St. Germaine, who has been with the team since its inception 13 years ago.
Norway's captain Helge Bjoernstad called the gold-medal match perhaps the best game in sled hockey history.
The bronze medal game between Sweden and Canada was equally exciting. Sweden won 2-1 in a shoot-out, sending gold-medal favorite Canada home empty-handed. Tournament highlights include:
? Guerra named best goalie, allowing five goals in six games.
? Sylvester Flis, Team USA, named best defenseman. He also led all scorers with 11 goals and seven assists.
? Bjoernstad named best forward, scoring six goals and 10 assists.
Sled hockey was a hot ticket during the 10-day Paralympics.
Nearly all six night games were deemed sellouts, though the Salt Lake Organizing Committee didn't sell upper bowl tickets except for the championship game. Thousands of schoolchildren with complimentary tickets filled the seats for day games.
St. Germaine said he hopes Team USA's success inspires children to take up the sport to build even stronger teams for 2006 and 2010.
There are sled hockey leagues scattered around the country, the strongest being in Chicago where about half the Paralympic team plays. Salt Lake County Parks and Recreation runs a program in March and September for both disabled and able-bodied players. Only players with disabilities could qualify for the national team.
Bjoernstad said the Americans winning the gold is good for sled hockey in general. He would like to see enough teams for pool play similar to the Olympics in future Paralympic Games. Great Britain and Germany are developing stronger programs.
ALPINE SKIING: One fact remains in alpine skiing after the Paralympics: The United States still rules. But other countries are starting to close the gap.
The Americans won the medal race in alpine skiing with a total of 37. Second was Austria with 26, and Germany was third with 14.
Of the six skiers who won four medals each in these Games, however, only one was from America.
Eight U.S. women won two or more medals, while only four men on the U.S. team were double winners. The U.S. women won 24 medals, to 13 for the men. The Austrian men won 19 and the German men 14. The closest challenge to the U.S. women came from Canada and Austria with seven medals each.
All told, 11 competitors won four medals, 16 won three, 21 took home two and 31 earned a single medal.
In the women's mono-ski or sit-ski classification, the women from America won 10 of 12 medals presented.
Sarah Billmeier of Yarmouth, Maine, will leave competitive skiing after four Paralympics to attend medial school. She won a gold and two silvers and tied, at 13, two other competitors for the most medals won in four Games.
Sarah Will, 36, of Vail, Colo., was one of those taking home four gold in four events. This, too, was her fourth Paralympics. She has now won a dozen gold medals.
Asked if she's thinking retirement, she replied: "Never say never. I may pull myself back in for the next (Paralympics)."
Competitors like Muffy Davis of Park City (three silver medals), Lacey Heward of Park City (two bronze medals), Allison Jones of Colorado Springs (two silver), Allison Pearl of Reno (one bronze) and Stepani Victor of Park City (one bronze) are among the younger competitors, and all are expected to return.
No one on the U.S. team dominated in the men's divisions the way Will did for the women.
Chris Devlin-Young from Compton, N.H., came the closest. He won a gold in the mono-ski division in super-G and a silver in the downhill and was in the lead for a gold in the giant slalom when he fell within sight of the finish. He finished seventh in the slalom.
Chris Waddell, 33, of Park City was hoping to recharge his career. He swept the medals in Lillehammer in 1994 and won a range of gold and silver in Nagano. This year, however, he has struggled. He trained hard over the summer and was hoping to win at least one gold.
He won a silver and two bronze, but the gold eluded him. In fact, all four golds in the same mono-ski class as Waddell went to Martin Braxenthaler of Germany.
One of the rising young stars is Jake Rife of Pocatello. The 24-year-old won a bronze in the class for disabilities in both legs in these Games.
Jason Lalla a 30-year-old competitor from of Bradford, N.H., skiing in the leg amputee class, and Andy Parr, a 29-year-old visually impaired skier from Rockland, Maine, each took home two medals.
A good mix of returning young skiers and veterans on the U.S. team should allow it to remain a leader in disabled skiing, but as these past Games have shown, the gap is narrowing.
CROSS COUNTRY: On the last day of cross country skiing at Soldier Hollow, in the midst of a race, much of the crowd briefly drifted into a summerlike slumber and stopped cheering.
"This isn't Sleepy Hollow," the announcer boomed, and the crowd dutifully awoke to the clamor of clanking cow bells.
Maybe they were just worn out. During the Olympics and Paralympics, Soldier Hollow hosted more events than any other venue. Even the competitors in Saturday's final races said they were relieved it was over.
And yet, as the tents folded and the circus moved on, it felt a lot like the last day of school ? a yearning for summer mixed with a longing to revisit the past.
Perhaps the greatest triumph at Soldier Hollow was of the human spirit, and nowhere was it more evident than at the finish line. There, Germans without arms waited to congratulate American competitors without legs. There, Russian coaches proudly wore Team USA berets.
As American Mike Crenshaw said before the Games began, "As you go along, you realize everyone's messed up somehow. Physically. Emotionally. Mentally. We all got problems. It's a matter of what you do with them."
He wasn't talking about Americans or Canadians or Swedes. He was talking about the human race.
The five days of cross country skiing during the Paralympics offered many moments to remember. The Americans performed as never before; a 58-year-old Norwegian woman redefined longevity; and a pair of Canadian brothers showed us the power of unity.
Led by Robert Balk, a sit-skier, and Salt Lake City's Steve Cook, the U.S. team won seven medals, including a silver in the men's relay. It was the first time the men's relay team had won a medal in the Paralympics.
Balk won two silvers and Cook took four, the most ever by an American cross country skier in one Paralympics. Cook came into the Paralympics hoping for one medal, but as the week progressed his goal changed.
"The silvers are great, but I want a gold," Cook said after Wednesday's relay.
Turns out the relay was as close as he would get. He skied the last leg, making up about 20 seconds on the leader, but finished a few seconds short of gold. Three days later he would take his fourth silver, and despite his disappointment at not winning gold, he said the 2002 Paralympics were greater than anything he had hoped for.
Norway's Ragnhild Myklebust, a 58-year-old sit-skier, couldn't have dreamed up a better Paralympics. She won every event she entered, including the biathlon, and set a record in the process for most career Paralympic medals won by one athlete with 22.
"Am I relieved it's over? Yes," she said after her last race, which she won by about one minute. "But I will miss it. I love to race."
Myklebust, stricken by polio as a child, now plans to retire, leaving the door open for others to medal, like American Candace Cable, who placed fourth in two different sit-ski races.
Of all the inspiring moments at Soldier Hollow, and there were many, one of the most moving came from two Canadian brothers. Brian McKeever, who lost his central vision at 18, followed his older brother Robin to two gold medals and one silver in the visually impaired class.
Robin, who serves as his brother's guide, has already competed in the Olympics as Brian hopes to. If he does, he will have to ski without his brother, but for now they ski together.
"We share in the lows and the highs," Brian said. "Here there have been a lot of triumphs."
BIATHLON: In biathlon, the Germans and Norwegians tend to dominate. That didn't change in the 2002 Winter Paralympic Games at Soldier Hollow.
During the one-day event, the Germans took most of the medals. They won half the golds, a silver and a bronze ? five medals in six events. Norwegian women earned two medals, a gold and a silver, while the Netherlands and Switzerland each captured a gold.
The four U.S. biathletes finished near the bottom of the pack. Not so surprising, given that most of them are novices at biathlon and practiced on borrowed rifles.
Keith Barney of Alpine, a first-time Paralympian, had hoped to shoot better but missed six of 10 targets and landed next-to-last in the men's 7.5-kilometer sit-ski race.
It was only the third biathlon competition for Cook, Salt Lake City's cross country skier who lost his right leg below the knee in a farm accident. He managed an 11th place finish, three minutes behind gold medalist Thomas Oelsner of Germany, who later was stripped of his medal for testing positive for performance-enhancement drugs.
But U.S. sit-skier Candace Cable of Truckee, Calif., is confident of a medal someday for the U.S. team.
"Stick around," she said.
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Contributing: Paralympic specialist Donna Kemp Spangler