A Whack Start For A Goofy Sport

The Bomb. 1) Exceptionally good. 2) What the lobby of the Shiga Kogen Prince Hotel in Yamanouchi Town appeared to have been hit with after a little snowboarders' soiree, resulting in Austrian boarder Martin Freinademetz's being kicked out of the competition. "We had a party, we had fun," he said. "Something got broken." Well put.

Tunes. 1) Last-minute adjustments to snowboards. 2) Music chosen by Olympic riders for the half-pipe competition, including selections by Hallucinogen and Bob Marley (most of which mentioned "ganja"), Biscuits for Smut by Helmet, and a lot of others that had the word Powers used in his press conference.

Whistler, British Columbia. 1) Hometown of Rebagliati. 2) Cause of Rebagliati's problems, according to a Canadian Olympic official, who said the snowboarder's positive test was a by-product of living in Whistler, where "marijuana is four times more potent" than in other areas and "most of the young people use it."

Outie. To depart, as in this exchange: Olympic snowboarder A, "I'm outie, dude." Olympic snowboarder B, "Where you goin', dude?" Olympic snowboarder A, "Whistler, dude!"

Big air. 1) To gain great height on a half-pipe trick. 2) Very bad decision, as in " Juan Antonio Samaranch made very big air letting snowboarding into the Olympics this soon."

Kanbayashi. The mountain park about 25 miles outside Nagano, home to not only the Olympic snowboarders but also the famous wild monkeys that bathe in the natural hot springs there. They really were amazing—howling at the top of their lungs, smelling); a little funny and doing rude things in public. The monkeys were; interesting, too.