2002-02-14 Today, on my return my Springfield, Missouri, I passed through Chicago O'Hare airport. In looking through the Chicago sun-times newspaper, I came across this titbit:
Happy ending for Wilczak by Greg Couch ....... Wilczak finished in fifth place in the women's single luge, equalling the highest Olympic finish in the event by an American. In four runs, at three-quarters of a mile per run, Wilczak's combined time was 2minutes, 54.254 seconds. ........ Now, is this event really 3/4 of a mile, or is it 1200 m? With times down to the millisecond, there would be a noticeable difference as 3/4 mile is 1207.008 m. That extra 7 m plus some will for sure add to ones time if the times in the paper are based on 1200 m. Another article entitled Holy hero! Poles love their 'Batman' by Rick Telander states: .....Ustupski went nuts when Malysz arced out over the mountainside on his first jump of the K-120 finals and came to earth 131 meters down the white slope. That's 432 feet, almost a football field and a half in the air. It put the 117-pound Malysz (pronounced "Mow-ish") in third place.... The reporter gives the length of the jump in metres, then for some reason adds feet in such an exciting way as to say the metres didn't convey the concept of the length. But, then, somehow the feet didn't do it either until the length was compared to the length of a football field. Does that make any sense? BTW, that weight should be 53.0 kg! It seems the press is in rare form with these Olympics. If I didn't know better, I'd think the entire Olympics was entirely done in FFU. John
