Olympics: Fairytale Nepalese skier juggles feelings of pride and fear

SALT LAKE CITY - Moments before the big race, his coach told him not to worry about anything around him.

But when you are the first athlete to represent Nepal at the winter Olympics, and deadly violence is raging through your country, that is not easy.

"It's a cocktail of emotions, pride and achievement in being a pioneer for my country," Jay Khadka said moments after finishing - albeit last - in the qualifying race in the men's cross-country 1.5km sprint yesterday.

He has not made it to the final, but that is not the most important thing when you are worried about your relatives in a country where huge numbers of troops are being deployed.

Maoist guerrillas, fighting to overthrow the monarchy and install a "people's republic" in the Himalayan nation, attacked Government installations at the weekend, killing soldiers and police. A total of 154 deaths has been reported.

Friends and relatives in and around Kathmandu are keeping an eye on Khadka's 67-year-old mother, who lives in a rural area and cannot begin to ponder what her son is doing on the ski trails.

"My mother hasn't a clue what skiing is. She still cooks food stirring with twigs. She is a peasant woman," the 29-year-old said.

Khadka adds quickly that he is also a peasant, as he tells of a life that resembles a Hollywood movie script.

He was born into poverty in a mountain village, where he started working in a stone quarry at the age of eight.

As a 19-year-old he was brought to Britain in 1991 by millionaire businessman Richard Morley to honour a pact made with the boy's father, a policeman who saved Morley's life when he collapsed with a punctured lung on a mountaineering expedition in 1984.

The policeman walked for three days to summon help, but refused financial reward, instead asking Morley to take care of his son should anything happen to him.

Morley, who owns hotels in Britain and France, returned to Nepal in 1991 to find that the elder Khadka had died, so he took the son home to his English castle.

"I was shocked and amused - automatic doors, escalators," Khadka said.

"I was used to spicy food and we had boiled vegetables."

Coming to Britain turned his life around.

Morley, who also plays the role of coach to his adopted son, offers encouragement at every turn.

But despite the joy of being at the Olympics, Khadka frets about what is going on in Nepal, which he usually visits each autumn.

* For Ildiko Strehli, a two-time survivor of breast cancer, just competing in the first two-woman bobsleigh event yesterday was worth a medal.

The 37-year-old Hungarian finished 13th, but spectators cheered her bob, carrying the slogan "Sled full of hope," as if she had won.

Strehli was first diagnosed with cancer when she was 30 and underwent chemotherapy and radiation.

The illness caught up with her again in 1999, leading to a double mastectomy.

A month after her operation, the International Olympic Committee included women's bobsleigh for the first time in the Games at Salt Lake City.

Strehli, who has lived in Salt Lake City since 1997, said the sport and the Games had given her a goal to strive for throughout her illness.

"The training gave me strength to keep going, to live life fully and not to look back to the past."

Taking part "gives me a smile for a lifetime." "It taught me not to look at the limitations. Live life fully and try to see what your goals are.

"Bobsleigh gave me a goal to live for."

She had hoped for a top-10 finish in a race won by Americans Jill Bakken and Vonetta Flowers. But she was just thrilled to take part.

"It gives me a smile for a lifetime," she said.

- AGENCIES