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CNN Sunday Morning

U.S. Getting Off to a Good Start

Aired February 10, 2002 - 10:10   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The U.S. is getting off to a good start at the Winter Olympics. CNN's Carol Lin also off to a good start reporting on them. She joins us live there. She has been up early on our behalf, and once again, we appreciate it, Carol.

CAROL LIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No problem, but if my lips freeze during this report, Miles, I hope you're ready to take over. It's really chilly here ...

O'BRIEN: Ready to step in.

LIN: ... today, but great for the Winter Games. All right, well let me give you the report here. Countries, four events, 12 medals including two for the United States. So there you see on the graphic, I hope you can see Italy got a gold, Russian Federation (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Czech Republic bronze, the United States two silver medals -- see my lips are already freezing, two silver medals -- one for speed skating and one for women's free style moguls.

Now let me tell you about this one. Shannon Bahrke, 21 years old, she was the first American to win a medal yesterday, finishing just a fraction of a second behind Norway. When I say a fraction of a second, I mean .88 in free style moguls. Now what's amazing about this young woman is just last year she was so sick with a staff infection that doctors told her that she should be prepared to never competitively ski again. And she managed to pull it out, getting the Gold Cup just last month, and then here she is with a silver medal, and she's all done Miles now. This is it. She finished yesterday and now she gets to enjoy the rest of the Olympics.

We've got another terrific story for you. Speed skater Derek Parra, here's a guy who just last year was working at the Home Depot. He was a handy man, still training, had decided after nogginoe (ph), that he was not going to continue speed skating. Well he decided to continue this time around and he won the silver yesterday in the 5,000-meter speed skate, and he shaved off more than 14 full seconds off of his best time ever.

How did he do this? Well apparently he woke up at 5:00 in the morning, the day of the competition yesterday and said, all right I've got to examine the situation here. Utah for a variety of reasons has the fastest ice in the world, and I need to tweak my skates. So he got his tools out and he, I don't know, did something to the blade, and obviously gave him a tremendous advantage. The only reason why he won the silver and he set a record as he did it was that well, someone was a little bit faster than he. Anyway, it's not bad for a guy who thought that he was just going to be, you know, selling paint at the Home Depot -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Well you know it's really -- it's got to be -- talk about the thrill of victory, agony of defeat stuff, you know to look up at the clock and see you've done a world record, and then ...

LIN: Yes it's pretty amazing.

O'BRIEN: ... you know it lasts about 10 minutes total, and it's got to be ...

LIN: Yes.

O'BRIEN: ... I mean in a way it's, you know, that's what the Olympics are all about, but nevertheless ...

LIN: Yes.

O'BRIEN: ... it'd be nice to have gold in your hand too.

LIN: Yes. Speaking of having gold in your hands, by the way, in case you wanted to see many of these high-profile events, looks like you're going to have to have gold in your hand ahead of time or certainly a lot of influence. In the last hour you talked with Salt Lake Olympic News -- the "Salt Lake Tribune" Olympic News Editor and we grabbed him afterwards, Miles, with a couple of questions of our own, and he brought up a really interesting point about who gets to go to these events and who has priority. Here's what Terry Orme told me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TERRY ORME, SALT LAKE TRIBUNE: Last night at figure skating or yesterday at figure skating, there were a lot of empty seats that were reserved for VIPs. And they just reserved them -- do they have to reserve them, but then the VIP doesn't show up, you know that's really too bad. Someone could use that seat.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIN: Yes and even if you go to the window and you decide you want to see that event and you can get a seat, I would -- I would daresay, Miles, as high-profile and as high-paid a network anchor as you are, I'm sure, that you'd have to cough up a lot of money. I mean for the opening games, it was $800 a ticket, and even for some of these prime seats like at the downhill ski race, if you actually wanted to be seated in the stands, you'd have to come up with close to $100. There are more Democratic tickets for anywhere from 25 to $40, but the key is you're going to be standing for three hours in a snow bank basically. So if you're willing to do that and pay the price, yes, you can get in. But ...

O'BRIEN: You know ...

LIN: ... the best seats are for the people with the big bucks. O'BRIEN: ... first of all, you're not talking to Larry King here. Secondly, this is a pet peeve of mine. I mean it's so corporate, there's so much money involved, all this sponsorship, it really -- if you allow it to, it can really ring the amateurism right out of the thing.

LIN: You know what's really strange about the whole corporate sponsorship thing -- I mean Salt Lake and Utah came up with tax dollars to pay for all of these new facilities and here's how it's going to work. Those corporate sponsorships, which are coming in, are therefore then going to be inferior if the Olympic Games make money, be repaid back to tax payers. So you got taxpayer money going out, but you've got the corporate sponsorships coming back to the taxpayers, but in the meantime because it's so corporately sponsored, you can't get ordinary people into the events. Does that make sense?

O'BRIEN: Yes, it doesn't make sense to me, but you know it's kind of this -- I think you take it back to the L.A. Olympics and Ubrass (ph) model of turning it into, you know, something we can actually turn a profit. I think it's really changed the dynamic that there's so much pressure to do that. On the other hand, should the taxpayers be footing the bill? So I -- you know, I -- anyway I don't think we're going to settle that one in this juncture, but nevertheless, Carol Lin, thank you as always for ...

LIN: Sure.

O'BRIEN: ... weighing in and we'll check in with you a little later. Have fun out there.

LIN: See you later Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right.

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