CNN/SI - SI for Women - Notes from the Field - Friday July 23, 1999 06:44 PM

Notes from the Field

Street has plenty to say. Carl Yarbrough

Salt Lake City: Picabo!

Look who's talking (and talking and talking) -- and taking aim at the next Winter Olympics

The hair is shorter, but the sentences are as long as ever, floating and soaring, connected by commas and ellipses, a raging river of consciousness that has always made Picabo Street a one-woman filibuster. Now that she's standing on the side of a mountain instead of skiing down one at 75 mph (the Olympic Super G champ is recovering from a broken femur and torn knee ligaments), the only real difference is her sentences. They don't all start with "I."

"I've grown up quite a bit between the ears," Street says. "I've gained perspective on how the real world works.... I've had a good time the past year, being on the same level with everybody else. Being on that pedestal puts distance between me and somebody, which I don't like. I'm much less self-absorbed, and rightly so. Not that I'm kicking myself for ever having been that self-absorbed, because it got me a lot, but toes got stepped on. I didn't use to feel it was important to guard teammates from my energy. I used to think, Deal with it. In a way it's still going to be like that because my backpack of energy and explosiveness is never going to go away, but I'll be more tactful when I go back."

Her goal is to ski in the 2002 Games, when she'll be 30. But NBC might have other plans. Street did splendid color commentary at the '99 world championships, and, yes, she has heard the joke that other skiers are bringing in Tonya Harding-style help to break her right knee. Says Street, who's 5'7" and 160, "You're going to have to find someone a little bigger than that.

-- Michael Farber

Sydney: Dramatic Debut

New Olympic sports always generate buzz. Beach volleyball brought the sunscreen culture to Atlanta in 1996, while softball made a national hero of Dot Richardson. Come 2000, a breathtaking Sydney Harbor venue, combined with the depth and quality of Australian women triathletes, could make triathlon the rookie sensation of the Sydney Summer Games.

The women's triathlon will take place one day after the Sydney opening ceremonies (the men's event is the following day). It commences spectacularly, with competitors swimming nine tenths of a mile on a triangular course in the harbor, against the backdrop of the Sydney Opera House. The 24.8-mile bike leg tours six laps along the inside of the harbor, around the rolling hills of the Royal Botanic Gardens and past trendy Circular Quay, and the 6.2-mile run makes two laps on the same course. Permanent seating for at least 3,000 spectators will be available near the finish-transition area, and another 100,000 are expected along the streets of downtown Sydney.

The atmosphere will be doubly charged by the possibility that an Australian will win one of the Games' first gold medals—and maybe a silver or bronze as well. At the end of 1998, Aussie women held six of the top 10 spots in the world triathlon rankings. Michellie Jones, 29, was ranked first, ahead of three-time No. 1 Emma Carney, whose '98 season was marred by injuries and illness. Their personal rivalry is expected to percolate over the next year and a half, especially since Carney's recent move from Melbourne to Sutherland, a beach town south of Sydney, where Jones sometimes trains (along with numerous other athletes). "Michellie didn't look too happy the first time she saw me walk into the pool," says Carney.

Jones doesn't lack competitive fire. She is best remembered on the international triathlon circuit for finishing third in the 1997 world championships, in Perth, despite multiple gashes in both feet from an accident in the bike-to-run transition. Carney won that race by 14 seconds over another Australian, Jackie Gallagher, and isn't concerned about anyone else's credentials. "People think I'm washed up because I had one bad year," Carney says. "I'm not. I'm the best triathlete in the world, and it's going to be very special to win a gold medal in that atmosphere."

-- Tim Layden