My Top 5 Performers 1.   Ole Einar Bjorndalen, biathlon 2.   Ian Thorpe, swimming 3.   Paula Radcliffe, track and field 4.   Catriona LeMay Doan, speed skating 5.   Simon Ammann, ski jumping

Overrated The skating scandal in Salt Lake Do we really think this was the first time somebody bought, bartered or cooked up a result based on something other than performance evaluation? The punishments for the individuals involved have ranged from vilification to professional suspension to possible extradition for criminal charges. Now the sport's international governing body is talking about scoring changes that will theoretically right all the wrongs. Nonsense. You cannot alter a culture of behavior by changing some numbers any more than you should pretend that this behavior is something new. Underrated The scandals we didn't hear about We refer you to the Most Overrated item and dedicate it to every judge who ever doodled in the middle of a double Axel. Annoying NBA attitude Make that every single NBA player who wants USA basketball to make it worth his while to represent his country in an international competition. In other countries -- make that EVERY other country -- where playing basketball permits star players their hedonistic lifestyle, the elite athletes consider it a privilege to take part in such events. After finishing sixth, two places behind New Zealand, at the World Championships in Indianapolis this summer, the U.S. is in danger of being rendered irrelevant in the game it created -- unless its best players start showing up. Breakthrough Performance of 2002 Sarah Hughes, figure skating; Tim Montgomery, track and field Both athletes were stuck among fellow pretenders to thrones occupied by more celebrated teammates -- four-time world champion Michelle Kwan and Olympic 100-meter gold medalist Maurice Greene. Yet Hughes and Montgomery performed at their best when it mattered most. Hughes skated a powerful and clean long program to overtake both Kwan and Russia's Irina Slutskaya to win the gold medal in Salt Lake City; Montgomery eclipsed Greene's world record and emerged as the new world's fastest human. Uplifting Jim Shea Jr., skeleton Two weeks before the Salt Lake Olympics, Shea's 91-year-old grandfather, Jack, was killed in a car accident. Jack was a gold medalist in speedskating at the 1932 Olympics in Lake Placid. Jim Sr. was an Olympian in the nordic combined. Jim Jr. (better known as Jimmy), the family's third-generation Olympian, was competing on a track that was ill-suited for his skills. He triumphed anyway and did his family proud, even though Jack was only there in spirit. MVP Roone Arledge Call it an honorarium. We'll says the P stands for "person" rather than "player," and pay respects here to the late ABC television producer who brought the Olympics into our living rooms and first made us care about Olympians. Arledge changed the way we look at sports and, by emphasizing the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat as much as facts and figures, enabled his network to portray Olympic sports in their most captivating light. Storyline to Follow in 2003 Who gets the Winter Olympics? Next summer, the IOC will choose from among Salzburg, Austria; Pyeongchang, Korea; and the favorite, Vancouver, and determine the city that will host the 2010 Winter Games. Their choice may also have an impact on New York's chances to land the Summer Games in 2012. The IOC likes to rotate host cities among geographic regions, and it would be hard-pressed to award consecutive Olympics to North American sites.