NAGANO 1998	FEBRUARY 9, 1998 VOL. 151 NO. 6
	From Kenya To A Long Distance Run In The Snow By JULIE K.L. DAM; BARRY HILLENBRAND oaches of cross-country skiing dream of athletes like PHILIP BOIT, left. Not only is Boit, 26, blessed with a long stride, a straight back and a powerful upper body, but he also has the endurance and stamina required for sustained exertion. Boit's only drawback was that as recently as two years ago he didn't know how to ski--which is perfectly understandable since he grew up in Kenya far from the snows of Kilimanjaro. He trained as a distance runner and never saw snow until 1996, when he and another Kenyan runner, HENRY BITOK, went to Finland under Nike sponsorship to test the proposition that good runners might make good skiers. It turns out they do. Boit qualified to participate in the 10-km cross country race as the sole member of the first Winter Olympic team ever sent by Kenya. Bitok missed qualifying, but will go to Nagano as part of Kenya's tiny delegation. The transformation from runner to skier wasn't easy for Boit. "Running is just running," says Boit, "but skiing is hard. It involves a lot of technique." And a lot of falling down, at least at first. He cut his time for the 10 km race from two hours--and lots of falls--to a credible 30 minutes. But Boit has no illusions about his chances of mounting the winners' podium with the likes of Norway's Bjorn Daehlie, who won the Olympic gold medal in 1994 with a time of 24:20. "Even if I finish dead last," says Boit, "I will be proud of myself as long as I improve my time." And representing his country in the Olympics--even as its only athlete--is no small thing. Speed Racer, Heartbreaker orn in a country where skating is second nature, Dutch speed skater RINTJE RITSMA strapped on his first pair of blades a couple of years after he learned to walk. But in his first six years on the national team, he was just one of a handful of flying Dutchmen. He emerged from the ranks in 1994, when he won the European all-around title, but was disappointed in Lillehammer where he managed to take home only a silver and a bronze. Like Johan Olav Koss, the man who beat him at the 1994 Olympics, Ritsma, 27, has been getting attention for more than just his performances. Ritsma broke the 1,500-m world record at the national championships in December, but it is his movie-star good looks which have recently been turning heads. No bus shelter in Holland has been safe from teenaged fans eager to liberate posters advertising shower gel in which he posed naked, showing off the muscular build that gives him a competitive edge. But Ritsma is more than just a lot of muscle. Says his manager, Patrick Wouters, "What really makes him a champion is his utterly determined frame of mind. Rain, hail or snow--there is nothing that will keep him away from training." Will anything keep him from finally striking Olympic gold? Cool, Smooth Operators t the last World Cup luge event before the Olympics, Germany's GEORG HACKL and Austria's Markus Prock, who finished one-two in Lillehammer, only managed to place third and seventh. But don't start betting against them yet. As the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung pointed out afterwards, everyone wants to win, but no one wants to be the favorite. Prock should know. A perpetual front runner, he admits to tensing up at the big events, losing to the underdog Hackl at the 1992 and 1994 Olympics. "Sometimes it's nothing but sheer luck which determines the winner," says Hackl, who is a proven master at understating his skills. But there is some truth to what he says. For the past decade Hackl, 31, and Prock, 33, have been the closest of competitors: in eight of the last 11 world championships, the two have taken first or second place. While the fans will undoubtedly see the luge competition as a dramatic two-man battle, the racers themselves both insist that rivalry is not what motivates them. "I absolutely don't care about what Prock's doing," says Hackl. "You fight against the chute, not against someone else." Prock couldn't agree more. "I don't consciously compete with one particular driver at the races," he says. Right. Let the mind games begin. --With Reporting by Ursula Sautter /Bonn and Barbara Smit /Amsterdam
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