The Sports Illustrated Olympic Daily is published in Salt Lake City and available in event venues and on newsstands for 16 straight days during the 2002 Winter Games. Here are some sights and scenes from today’s edition.

To the bad boys and girls of snowboarding, the Games are tame, but far from lame

By Kelley King

As if his gravity-defying maneuvers out of the halfpipe weren't statement enough, world junior champion snowboarder Heikki Sorsa of Finland arrived at the Park City Mountain Resort for practice on Thursday morning with his hair gelled into a stiff mohawk. "Olympic rules are not so cool," said Sorsa, who turns 20 today. "I find a way to be different."

To a group of athletes who pride themselves on individual style, be it a new trick or an aerodynamic coif, the Olympics are about as liberating as parochial school. There are the Crayola-colored team uniforms -- just a shade better than the tapered jeans and sensible burgundy pumps that made U.S. halfpipe rider Shannon Dunn feel like "1980s bad-style girl" in Nagano. There is the squeaky-clean song list (including hits by Donny Osmond and Yanni) from which the riders must choose music for their runs. Then there is the sense among athletes that judges reward height of maneuvers over the smooth turns championed by boarders.

Enforced by the Fédération Internationale de Ski (FIS), which the IOC appointed to oversee Olympic snowboarding, these regulations have turned off some of the sport's best. Norway's Terje Haakonsen and the U.S.'s Tara Dakides are among the top boarders who have boycotted FIS's Olympic qualification circuit in favor of more relaxed, high-profile events managed by the International Snowboarding Federation (ISF). "Snowboarders don't need the Olympics," says boardmaker Jake Burton, one of the many sponsors keeping snowboarders in cargo pants and SUVs. "The sport was doing fine before the Olympics came along." To the athletes, the Games' out-of-touch approach is all the more frustrating because it was the IOC itself, in an effort to liven up the fossilized winter lineup with youth-oriented offerings, that campaigned for the sport's inclusion at the 1998 Olympics.

As if scripted, snowboarders came off like bored kids in the backseat of the Nagano Games. Given to Marlboro breaks between practice runs and irreverent quotes during interviews, few were Wheaties-box material even before Canada's Ross Rebagliati was disqualified for testing positive for marijuana after winning the giant slalom. (His medal was returned after a panel of arbitrators concluded that pot was not a prohibited substance at the time. It is now.) "We had no clue what to expect in Japan," says U.S. rider Ross Powers. "Knowing what the deal is, we can enjoy the Olympics for what they are."

Cruising along in the sunshine that blanketed Park City's magnificent Superpipe during practice, riders even admitted to being stoked for the Games. "There are weird hoops to jump through, but then you get the whole world watching you do something you love," said U.S. rider Tricia Byrnes. "Don't let anyone fool you. We all worked extremely hard to get here."

Just ask 19-year-old U.S. halfpiper Danny Kass, who a couple of months ago said that the prospect of "beer and babes" was driving him on his Salt Lake quest. "Sometimes," said Kass, shifting uncomfortably in the requisite robin's-egg-blue vest worn by the U.S. team at a Thursday press conference, "people think you're more laid back than what you are."

Don't expect a mellow vibe when halfpipe competition gets under way with the women's event today. As even snowboarders will agree, few fashion statements compare to a gold medal around your neck.