In Sped The Ancients

In one final burst Friday night Austria's World Champion Emmerich Danzer was lutzed out of an Olympic gold by his countryman, Wolfgang Schwarz, he of the gilded skates and the thousand blond curls, and beaten for the silver by American Tim Wood, who further established the fact that skaters are our one Olympic commodity.

But the falling sickness that had hit the U.S. skiers had now been caught by some of our figure skaters. In pairs, the usually cool Kauffmans had a hard night of it. First Cynthia dropped Ronald; then Ronald dropped Cynthia, or something like that. And when the young Montana flash, John Misha Petkevich, came out of his flying Bourkey jump, he landed approximately on his left ear.

When the Games were over, Chief Olympic Press Officer Paul Blanc leaned back at his desk, poured a neat wallop of King George Scotch and sighed.

"The organization of the Olympics," he said, "the time, planning and money that goes into them, is much bigger than the actual event. The thing has grown all out of size. It is no longer possible to do it on the intimate, less-troubled, carefree Squaw Valley scale. Those days will never return.

"But if we had it to do all over again, I suppose we would do everything the same. Except that we would never put that bobsled run at Alpe d'Huez. I don't know where, but not there.

"Already the Japanese have been around," he continued, "measuring things, taking pictures and getting ready for the 1972 Winter Games in Sapporo. They have not been in to ask my advice. Why should they?

"The French Olympics are over." He sighed gratefully and sipped at the King George. "The next Olympics are Japan's problem."