Cool as ice

Firefighter Parsley aims for Olympic gold

PARK CITY, Utah (AP) -- Lea Ann Parsley dug her fingers into the tattered edges of the World Trade Center flag, praying the wind wouldn't rip it further.

"It was so fragile," she said.

As were her emotions.

Parsley, a firefighter from Granville, Ohio, hasn't competed yet in women's skeleton but already has made her mark on the Salt Lake City Games.

She was part of the honor guard of eight American athletes chosen to carry the U.S. flag recovered at Ground Zero into the stadium during last Friday's opening ceremony.

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"That was an incredible honor and certainly an incredible moment," she said.

On Wednesday, Parsley finally gets to take off in her sled in skeleton, the sliding sport combining raw speed and raw nerves that's making its debut as a women's event at the Winter Olympics.

Parsley, who has been nursing a torn hamstring since the Olympic trials last month, had the fastest time during the final practice session Tuesday.

Once the games are over, Parsley said she wants to visit Ground Zero -- where hundreds of her fellow firefighters were killed in the rescue following the terrorist attacks.

"I would just like to stand down there," she said.

Parsley was the perfect choice to take part in the flag ceremony. She was named Ohio Firefighter of the Year in 1999 after helping rescue a woman and her 14-year-old wheelchair-bound daughter from their burning house.

While getting ready to enter the stadium, Parsley tried to steady herself for the emotions she and 55,000 others would feel at the sight of the shredded flag.

She wasn't sure what kind of reaction to expect. As the curtain pulled back and she and the other seven athletes walked in, there was none.

Just silence.

"I don't know if we were expecting people to cheer or if there would be music playing, but it wasn't that," she said. "We were dumbfounded by the silence. It was unbelievable."

As the crowd watched, Parsley and her American teammates nervously cradled the symbolic national treasure and painful reminder of Sept. 11.

"Right at the first note of the national anthem, a breeze picked up and it just rippled across," she said. "We really squeezed it at that point. We didn't want it to rip any more or take off on us."

Parsley always wanted to be a firefighter, just like her two older brothers. As a kid, she followed them to the firehouse from their home two blocks away, and Parsley would do chores until they returned from a call.

By 1985, Parsley was volunteering -- still does -- in her hometown, and she became a full-time paid firefighter in nearby New Albany 10 years later.

"I love it," said Parsley, who also is a registered nurse and is working toward a doctorate in nursing at Ohio State. "It's a great job. It's like being on a team, and it gives me the ability to contribute to my community, to give back to the town where I grew up."

An all-around athlete, the 33-year-old Parsley never has been able to sit still. She played basketball at Marshall, was a champion javelin thrower and played team handball.

She stumbled upon skeleton.

Searching the Internet, she found a site promoting sliding sports and went to Lake Placid, N.Y., thinking she'd give bobsled or luge a try.

Skeleton, though, looked like more fun, and after one ride she was hooked.

Parsley loves the rush of sliding down a mountain course on her stomach at 80 mph with her chin two inches above the ice.

Sure, there's a fear factor, but she said it's nothing compared to firefighting.

"There's risk in both, but in fire the risks are so unknown," she said. "Here, we try to eliminate as much of the unknown as possible. You're as prepared as possible the minute you step on the track.

"With fire, you kind of do the same thing, you're training and preparing as much as you can, but there's still that element of, 'I don't really know what's in the building.'"

When she finally took her seat at the opening ceremony, Parsley found herself sitting near President Bush.

"I just happened to be by the aisle, and he ended up next to me," Parsley said.

She spoke with Bush for a few moments, and he joked with her about having to read the cue cards to declare the games open.

"When he finished, he said, 'How did I do?'" Parsley said. "Like I'm going to say, 'Oh, man, you were terrible.' I told him, 'You were great', which he was."

There's another memory she can't extinguish -- seeing the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team gather and light the Olympic flame.

"It was so neat to see that thing light," she said, looking up again to relive the memory. "That night it was so big and so cool."

Parsley has her own cool Olympic flames. They're the red, orange and yellow ones she painted on her skeleton helmet.

"I went to Wal-Mart and bought three 99-cent cans of spray paint and did it myself," she said. "Everybody else has like $500 paint jobs.

"All the guys at the firehouse like it."

 

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