Sport: Trying to Keep That Feeling

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After all, an Olympian dream comes in the bargain. "I want to ski the down hill course where Bill Johnson won the gold medal," states Philadelphian John O'Neil. Though he cannot understand the words, Rizo Uzicanin recognizes the glint in the American's eye and beams at him from his stall in the old Turkish market. Such tourist fantasies are warmer to Uzicanin than the handcrafted woolens hanging from his shop front. "I've been on this corner 64 years," he says, "since I was a boy of seven with my father. We have never seen the prosperity that we have here since the Olympics."

That prosperity and the unrelenting reach for the big time have not eroded the wonder either of the Games or of what they brought to Sarajevo. The children who moved into the apartments built to serve as the Olympic Village strap on their skates and wobble up and down the hard-packed snow on the sidewalks and streets. There are fantasies here just as surely as in Philadelphia. They say with pride, "In school, the other kids call us 'Olympians.' " A cab driver buzzes about town with his new CB radio turned up to catch a dispatcher's grating squawk through the static. "We got this radio system new since the Olympics," he boasts. "Now tourists can call for a taxi, and we come just like in other cities." At the skating rink where Torvill and Dean once carved perfection, the jam-packed crowd of children looks like it is having recess on an oil slick: hardly a child in Sarajevo had owned a pair of skates until the Olympic rinks were built, but they manage to stay upright, so far more on sheer enthusiasm than grace.

In his restaurant and bar by the Miljacka River, Ferid Sultanovic settles his ex-weightlifter's girth at a returning visitor's table and tenders a drink on the house. "There have been many changes, but it is the mentality that counts," he says. "We are an openhearted people, and perhaps the world came to know this from the Olympics. Many years will pass, but I do not think the people will change inside."

On a free afternoon in the middle of the Games last year, a taxi driver was asked to take a first-time visitor to one of Sarajevo's historical sites. He drove around the city and the hillsides above for more than three enthusiastic hours, then took her to his home for thick, black coffee with his family. On returning to the press village, he refused payment. At the end of a visit this year, another taxi pulled up to the modern Butmir Airport entrance, where the fare was paid. Gratefully a tip was offered, but the driver declined it. "Is O.K., is enough," he said in English, with a huge smile. "Come back." Sultanovic was right. Nothing has changed inside.