What people are talking about in the Olympic world

1) Figure Skating Trials (and Tribulations)

	Ailing Michelle Kwan will miss the U.S. nationals, but she has petitioned the U.S. figure skating committee for one of three Olympic berths. AP
	MAILBAG Got a question or comment for Craig? Your name: Your e-mail address: Your home town: Enter your question:

Keeping America's most popular figure skater off the Turin Olympic team would take guts -- more guts than the 36 members of U.S. Figure Skating's international committee are likely to show when they vote on the matter at the end of this week's national championships in St. Louis. Beloved five-time world champion Michelle Kwan, out virtually all season with a hip strain, is skipping the nationals because of a groin injury, but has asked the committee to give her one of the U.S.'s three Olympic women's singles berths anyway.

This is a no-win decision, because in Sasha Cohen, Alissa Czisny, Kimmie Meissner and Emily Hughes, the U.S. has four other world-class skaters who are healthy and Olympic-worthy. The only certainty is that if Kwan is selected, she will be under crushing pressure to perform well in Turin -- and, for the first time in her glorious career, could end up portrayed as a villain.

2) And Speaking of Kwan...

Around the Rings, the authoritative Olympic newsletter, offered this note last week: "U.S. figure skater Michelle Kwan has signed on to be the lead Olympian in Coke's 2006 Olympic advertising, including television commercials and in-store Coke promotions. Kwan will be in promotions for 14 Coke brands, including Dasani and Minute Maid." Just wondering: Do you think being the centerpiece of the ad campaign of perhaps the Olympics' most prominent sponsor will help or hurt her chances of being named to the U.S. team?

3) Bode on '60'

This is a public service announcement: Skiing downhill at 90 mph after drinking can be dangerous to your health. This is a Bode Miller service announcement: Telling an interviewer from 60 Minutes that "if you ever try to ski when you're wasted, it's not easy" -- thus giving the magazine show a juicy headline with which to tout your appearance -- can be dangerous to your avowed desire not to get caught up in media hype. This is turning into a very strange season for Miller, who somehow is still second in the World Cup overall standings (behind Austria's Benjamin Raich) even though he hasn't reached a podium in more than a month.

4) Who's on the Bubble?

Top women figure skaters aren't the only prominent U.S. athletes in jeopardy of missing a trip to the Olympics. With three weeks to go before U.S. rosters must be finalized, some of America's best snowboarders, freestyle skiers and skeleton riders are fighting to make the team. Among them are all three Olympic men's halfpipe medalists from '02 (Ross Powers, Danny Kass and J.J. Thomas) and last year's No. 1-ranked women's skeleton competitor, Noelle Pikus-Pace, whose fate will be determined this week at a World Cup event in Koenigsee, Germany. For the injury-plagued Pikus-Pace to even have a chance of making the team, the U.S. women must earn enough team points in Koenigsee to move ahead of Switzerland and qualify for a second women's singles berth.

5) Shaun Palmer

In one of the more remarkable stories of the winter, the 37-year-old extreme-sports legend seems on the verge of making the U.S. team in the new Olympic snowboarding event of snowboardcross (pack racing down a cross-country-type course). A onetime star in mountain biking and motocross, and a pioneer in snowboardcross, Palmer had taken a six-year hiatus from snowboard competition before this season. By last year he had fallen into drinking and drug use, habits that last May landed him in a coma. Now he's sober and focused on winning a medal. Palmer's two top-five World Cup finishes last week only underscore why USA Today once ran a headline asking, "Is This Man the World's Greatest Athlete?"

6) Ligety Split

He is the U.S. alpine team's up-and-comer, and suddenly a solid Olympic medal pick in slalom. Ted Ligety finished second in a World Cup slalom on Sunday behind the juggernaut that is Giorgio Rocca of Italy. Ligety, a 21-year-old from Park City, Utah, has both the skills and the attitude to be stand up to Olympic pressure. He is not intimidated by veterans like Miller or by the 30-year-old Rocca, who increased his slalom winning streak to four and should be a heavy favorite in front of the home fans in Italy next month.

7) Alaska's Big Week

The state that ranks 47th in population will end up in the top 10 in '06 Winter Olympians produced. Cross-country skier Kikkan Randall of Anchorage finished or tied for first in three events at nationals last week, and snowboarder Rosey Fletcher of Girdwood took second in a World Cup parallel giant slalom in Austria to become eligible for her third Olympics. With a list that includes the U.S.'s best biathletes -- Jay Hakkinen of Kasilof and Rachel Steer of Anchorage -- ski jumper Alan Alborn of Anchorage and women's hockey goalie Pam Dreyer of Eagle River, the Last Frontier won't seem so remote for 17 days in February.

8) Going Postal

What goes up must come down ... or at least ski downhill. First-class postage just rose to 39 cents, and starting later this week you can buy the U.S. Postal Service's 2006 Olympic commemorative stamp, featuring an illustration of a downhiller. Sadly, the stamp won't make mailing in the phone bill feel any more Olympian.