Olympics: Chills, thrills, spills for New Zealanders at Salt Lake City

By ELEANOR BLACK

For sports fans it is the ultimate television indulgence - two weeks watching the world's best athletes exhaust themselves in a snowy wonderland while we sit in our shorts with a beer in hand.

But for the presenters and producers of TVNZ's 2002 Winter Olympic Games coverage it is two weeks of darned hard work. There are hundreds of hours of footage to plough through, careful research to be done and scripts to be written.

And always there is the hunt for good shots of Kiwi athletes giving it their best, to offer viewers at home someone to root for.

"You eat, drink and sleep it. It's terrific," says Geoff Bryan, who has covered four summer games and is looking forward to fronting his first Winter Olympics.

TV One will churn out more than 90 hours of coverage in twice-daily blocks, from the opening ceremony on Saturday (February 9) to the closing extravaganza on February 25. A crew of eight satellite technicians and one producer will work in Salt Lake City but the presenters are based in the Auckland studio.

Bryan hosts a summary of the day's highlights each evening, while Bernadine Oliver-Kerby presents snow and ice action each afternoon.

As there are just 11 New Zealand athletes competing in the games, and none is expected to come home with a medal, most of the broadcasts will focus on the most popular, the new and the strange - like the skeleton, a luge-like race which returns to the games after a 54-year absence.

Bryan has his own favourites (ice hockey and ski jump) but it is TVNZ producer Murray Needham, who has worked on every Olympics since 1980, who decides the final line-up. And even he is hamstrung by what's provided by host broadcaster ISB, a company set up to cover these games and the upcoming summer games in Athens.

TVNZ buys daily highlights packages, which may or may not include Kiwi athletes, and space at the international broadcast centre set up in Salt Lake City.

"I don't think you need to know a lot about these particular sports to be able to admire what these people can do," says Bryan. "I think it does grab you because these people are fantastic top-level inter-national sportspeople and you can marvel."

For Needham, there is a special delight in seeing extraordinary physical feats performed against a backdrop of fairytale icing sugar mountains. Salt Lake City lies at the base of the Wasatch Mountains, part of the Rockies, and is so picturesque it has become a staple location for filmmakers.

"I have vivid memories of Nagano four years ago and Lillehammer four years before that and some of the pictures were just stunning, so I can't wait for it to start," says Needham.

Bryan will be particularly interested in how alpine skier Claudia Riegler, competing in the slalom, will fare at her third Olympics.

"For Riegler, this is almost a career-defining Games. She crashed out in the last two and at her best I think you could say she has an outside chance of providing New Zealand's second Winter Olympics medal. But that's at her best and we haven't seen an awful lot of that over the last year or two."

Also of interest will be the intense security measures in the wake of September 11 and the bomb at Atlanta in 1996. Between 14,500 and 16,500 security personnel, including 4500 soldiers, will work at the venues. The security budget is nearly $NZ700 million.

"I'm sure the Americans will turn it on full scale," says Bryan. "I think it's very important that after September 11 the world comes together in Salt Lake City. I think they obviously want to pull off a trouble-free games but security is on everyone's lips, you can't get away from it.

"From my experience in Atlanta, it is still important to strike a balance between safety and oppressive security because if it's too oppressive it's just going to smother the games completely."

The NZ team at Salt Lake City

Claudia Riegler

Age: 25

Event: Alpine skiing slalom

Most experienced Olympian of the group, having already competed at the Nagano and Lillehammer games. Career high was a second place finish at the 1996-97 world cup and a fourth at the 1996 world championships. From Salzburg, Austria.

Todd Haywood

Age: 24

Event: Giant slalom and slalom

Current New Zealand slalom champion. The Aucklander hopes to place in the top 25 in the giant slalom after his 34th placing at the 2000 world championship.

Jesse Teat

Age: 22

Event: Giant slalom and slalom

New Zealand champ in the giant slalom. Has never competed at a world level before and is hoping to finish in the top 40, a good way of celebrating his 23rd birthday, on Day 2 of the Games.

Angela Paul

Age: 26

Event: Luge

Highest-placing New Zealand athlete at the Nagano games, coming in 19th. Salt Lake will be her second Olympics and the Hamiltonian is hoping for a top 10 finish.

Mark Jackson

Age: 21

Event: Short track speed skating

The Christchurch native, now living in Calgary, Canada holds the New Zealand record for every distance, from 500m to 3000. Jackson is competing in the 500, 1000 and 1500m at Salt Lake.

Liz Couch

Age: 30

Event: Skeleton

First New Zealander to compete in the sport, similar to luge except the competitor lies on a sled face down and head first. The PE teacher, who lives in Calgary, took it up in in 1999 and last season placed 20th in the world cup standings.

Bobsleigh team

Alan Henderson (36), will pilot both the two-man and four-man sleds. He and Angus Ross (33) were placed 28th in a field of 36 at the Nagano games in 1998. The others in the team - Stephen Harrison (29), Matt Dallow (29, the brother of TV One presenter Simon Dallow), and Mark Edmond (24) - are all newcomers to the world's most prestigious winter sporting event.