ANTIPASTI
Finish Can't Ruin Nyman's Party
The Shroud of Turin won't be shown publicly again until 2015.
(2000 Photo By Antonio Calanni -- Associated Press)
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Steve Nyman crossed the finish line of the men's downhill yesterday in Sestriere and swiveled his head to look at the scoreboard. And down he went, landing with a thud and skidding into the fence.
Embarrassing? Not at all, Nyman said. When he looked back up at the scoreboard, the results that showed he had finished tied for 19th were gone. In their place were the words "Happy Birthday, Steve."
Nyman, who turned 24 yesterday, bounced right back up and pumped his fist to the crowd, acknowledging the birthday wishes. He went on to do a little dance before he disappeared into a tent.
"It's a wonderful day," Nyman said, smiling broadly. "It's just incredible to feel all this."
Nyman, incidentally, is not only rooting for himself at these Games. His girlfriend is U.S. skier Julia Mancuso, a contender to win at least one medal later this week in Sestriere.
-- Barry Svrluga
From Many, One
A large flock of small birds formed at sunset Saturday night, maybe 2,000 of them, charcoal in color and too small to make out as a species. They began weaving and swaying back and forth over the Main Media Center, the wind taking them as much as their wings.
Spreading out like a gray quilt or morphing into a thick puff of black smoke, they were an airborne amoeba -- a moving DNA strand. Five smaller packs of maybe 500 birds joined from the north and south, until the floating amoeba began to grow. The flock folded over and out, unspooling and then condensing again -- a sight that dropped the jaws of visiting journalists and made the Turinese volunteers yawn.
Ten minutes passed, and more packs joined.
It was almost nightfall when several thousand were blessed with one more addition. A loner, coming from the west, straight up into the fray, flying as fast as its tiny wings would take it, flying to become a part of something larger than itself.
