17 février 2006

Selects wrong skis, wax

Terry Jones

Too bad there wasn't a Norwegian coach to hand Beckie Scott a new set of skis with the right wax in the wet weather yesterday.

Bjornar Haakensmoen handed Canadian Sara Renner a new pole when she broke hers two days earlier in the relay. That turned out to be worth a silver medal for the two.

But this day Scott was on the wrong skis, with the wrong wax in the wrong weather and there was no Bjornar anywhere around to save the day.

"It was ski selection," Scott said. "It was partly wax. We made some last-minute adjustments to the skis. I know that happened partly in panic."

Her dream went bust yesterday because of a choice of skis and wax.

She didn't tell anybody about the dream until it popped, but Scott thought it was possible she could win a gold, a silver and a bronze at these Games.

"Absolutely," she said. "I had myself set up for big things."

Nobody in Olympic history had ever won a bronze, a silver and gold in the same race before Scott did that at the past Olympics. Scott is already an Olympic trivia question for the ages with that one.

The 31-year-old from Vermilion, Alta., won bronze in the pursuit at Salt Lake 2002, had it upgraded to silver a year later at a special ceremony at Canada Olympic Park in Calgary and upgraded to gold at another special ceremony at the home of the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver when the courts of sport finally finished ruling on positive drug tests against the other two people on the podium.

Scott thought her best shot for gold was in the pursuit where she ended up finishing sixth. But then she combined with Renner to win silver in the sprint relay. Yesterday she figured she was in the mix in the 10-km.

She finished 30th. Then was disqualified for making an illegal lane change.

Coach Dave Wood said "I suspect a mistake was made with the ski selection."

He said Scott has "50 or 60 to choose from -- a lot."

He said he wasn't going to knock the support team for making a mistake.

"They did a good job two days ago," he said of Scott and Renner having everything right to win a silver in the relay.

Renner ended up eighth.

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