Tim Burke back in the spotlight

Tim Burke finished third in a World Cup biathlon Sunday in Pokljuka, Slovenia, his first podium finish since the 2010 season, highlighting an extraordinary weekend for American athletes on skis. Burke's third-place in the 15-kilometer mass start marked his fourth career top-three finish.

"I feel like I'm back in the form I had before," Burke said over the phone. "And I'm more confident now."

Comparing Burke's achievement to those of other Americans over the weekend is, of course, something of apples to oranges. After all:

In Alta Badia, Italy, on Sunday, alpine racer Ted Ligety dominated a giant slalom to win by 2.04 seconds over Austria's Marcel Hirscher. It was Ligety's 14th career giant-slalom victory, tying him for fourth on the all-time wins list.

On Saturday, in snowy, foggy Val Gardena, Italy, downhiller Steven Nyman, starting 39th -- won. He missed all of last year with a torn left Achilles' tendon. Nyman's last top-three finish: 2007, at Beaver Creek, Colo.

Also in Val Gardena, Travis Ganong put down a career-best tenth.

In freestyle skiing on Saturday in Ruka, Finland, Heather McPhie -- relying on her back-X and signature D-spin -- notched her first World Cup victory in three seasons; on the men's side, Jeremy Cota took third. Four U.S. women placed in the top 10 and three American men in the top six.

In World Cup snowboard-cross racing Friday at Telluride, Colo., two-time Olympic champion Seth Wescott -- who was out much of last year with a shoulder injury -- won a photo finish in a blizzard to prevail over Australia's Alex Pullin, who had beaten him in the quarterfinals and semifinals.

Wescott and X Games champ Nate Holland won Saturday's team event.

"It feels really good to be back," Wescott said after winning Friday's race, adding, "…When I hole-shotted that first one, I said, 'Here we go, I love doing this.' "

In men's halfpipe Saturday in Breckenridge, Colo., on the Dew Tour, Shaun White and Louie Vito went one-two, White throwing an enormous signature double McTwist 1200 in his first run to score 95.25; Kaitlyn Farrington -- who debuted back-to-back 900s for the first time in her competition run -- won the women's event, Maddy Schaffrick taking third.

"I am excited! After coming off a knee injury this summer I am glad to be on top," White said. "I feel great and am pumped for the season. This is the road to Sochi!"

Also in Breckenridge, in the women's freeski superpipe, Brita Sigourney and Maddie Bowman went 1-2, Sigourney winning in her first competition after suffering a knee injury last February and training hard at the U.S. Ski Team's Park City's Center of Excellence workout facility all summer.

And Jamie Anderson won the slopestyle event, her run featuring spins in all four directions: a half cab 5-0, frontside 720, switch backside 540 and, finally, a huge 540 that she floated to the bottom.

In cross-country skiing, at the World Cup sprints Saturday in Canmore, Canada, Kikkan Randall took second, behind Norway's Maiken Kaspersen Falla. Randall leads the World Cup sprint standings; she moved up to second in the overall standings. The top American man, Andy Newell, finished fifth.

With all that … Tim Burke? And third place?

Yes.

Tim Burke.

Because biathlon, and Burke, are all about context, promise and opportunity.

The U.S. biathlon team has never -- again, never -- won an Olympic medal and Burke is one of its best bets to do so at the Sochi 2014 Games.

Burke also said by phone Sunday about his third-place finish, "This is big for me," and those words hold way more than just the obvious.

Amid his breakout 2010 season, Burke turned up with a painful condition, "compartment syndrome," that's not uncommon to Nordic skiers. The surgery and recovery had kept him out of the spotlight since.

But it was clear as the weekend's events progressed that Burke was on the verge of breaking through. He finished fourth in the 10k sprint and seventh in the 12.5 pursuit.

A biathlon primer: only 30 guys start in the 15k mass start, and those 30 must qualify. Of the 30 in Sunday's race, only two were North Americans -- Burke and Canada's Jean Philippe Leguellec, who would finish 21st.

Only one guy shot clean Sunday, Andreas Birnbacher of Germany. No surprise -- he won.

Jakov Fak of Slovenia, the winner of Thursday's sprint, missed just two shots. He finished just five seconds ahead of Burke.

Burke shot clean in the first two stages, then incurred a single penalty on the each of the last two stages.

He crossed the finish line a mere 3.3 seconds ahead of Martin Fourcade of France, the current World Cup leader. The solid weekend in Pokljuka lifted Burke to sixth in the overall World Cup standings.

What-ifs are usually of no consequence -- but in this instance, it's worth noting that if Burke had shot clean, his skiing is once again sound enough again that he might well have won Sunday's race.

The only reason to bring that up is that finishing third is the kind of thing that makes a guy think he can get to first, and -- just as importantly -- challenge for that top spot consistently.

"It's one thing," Burke said, "to know your training is going well, to think you can do this in a race.

"It's another to do it in a race.

"Now I know."

Rogge's IOC presidency 10 years in

DURBAN, South Africa -- The International Olympic Committee's 123rd session, or annual general assembly, closed here Saturday, the occasion marking 10 years of Jacques Rogge's presidency. By every objective measure, the IOC is in remarkably good shape.

History ultimately will judge whether Rogge proved a great president. It's too soon. In the moment it's clear that the president deserves, across the board, high marks.

No institution is immune from constructive criticism, and that includes the IOC. That's to be expected when dealing with multitudes of national Olympic committees, international sports federations and, of course, governments worldwide. To underscore the complexity of the IOC's task, meanwhile, a fair wrap-up of this 123rd session would have to note that while the Winter Games program is innovative and progressive, the Summer Games program -- bluntly -- needs help.

Rogge should give thanks each and every day that Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps are global icons. The Summer Games depends on the making of heroes; those heroes connect with young people; and those two are about it right now.

Pause for a moment now to try to think of others. Go ahead.

Still waiting.

That said, with only two years to go before he leaves office, and he underscored Saturday at his wrap-up news conference that he would indeed leave at the end of his second term in September, 2013, Rogge's record on most big-picture issues is incredibly positive.

His financial advisors, including IOC member Richard Carrion of Puerto Rico, a banker, have -- despite the worst financial conditions in decades -- managed to grow the IOC's financial reserve to $592 million at the end of 2010 from $105 million in 2001.

The reserve is designed to allow the IOC to continue to operate for a full four-year cycle in case an Olympics is canceled. Rogge made growing it a priority soon after he was elected president in 2001.

In other financial matters, NBC's $4.38 billion U.S. TV rights deal secures the IOC's financial base through 2020. The IOC's global sponsorship program has raised $957 million for the four-year run through the 2012 London Games; a 12th sponsor would take the number over $1 billion.

Already, the IOC has raised $921 million from global sponsors for Sochi 2014 and Rio 2016, and $632 million for 2018 and 2020.

The big news here, of course, was that Pyeongchang was elected to stage the 2018 Winter Games, Rogge saying at the ending news  conference, "The Koreans have been rewarded for their patience, their perseverance and maybe their program of 'new horizons.' "

The "new horizons" trend produced Sochi for 2014, Rio for 2016, Pyeongchang for 2018 and is now likely to see Istanbul enter the 2020 race. Rome is already a declared candidate. Madrid is likely to announce soon that it's in. Tokyo may, too, though why the IOC would go back to Asia in 2020 after 2018 remains uncertain.

Rogge said he would be "delighted" to see an American bid for 2020. Of course. It's in the IOC's interest to solicit as many bids as possible.

Is it in the U.S. Olympic Committee's?

USOC officials have said consistently that they first need to resolve a longstanding revenue dispute with the IOC -- a matter that historians may also come to see as one of the defining threads of Rogge's years.

A resolution may, or may not, happen before the Sept. 1 deadline for declaring for 2020.

Even if the financial dispute is resolved, the overarching question is whether, "new horizons" and all, a U.S. bid can win.

Also part of the calculus is whether 2022 might make for a smarter American play.

It used to be that the revenue disparity between a Summer and Winter Games could be pronounced -- that is, in favor a Summer Games. No more. Dmitry Chernyshenko, the head of those Sochi 2014  Games, told a small group of reporters here that his committee is on target right now to raise $1.3 billion in domestic sponsorships, in Russia; that's more than they did in China for the Summer Games in Beijing just three years ago.

Moreover, the United States has become a winter sports power, with a best-in-the-world 37 medals in 2010 in Vancouver that produced marketable American stars such as Lindsey Vonn, Apolo Ohno and Evan Lysacek.

And then there's the innovation issue -- the drawing power of the Winter Games for the demographically key youth market.

The Winter Games program has in recent years seen the addition of snowboarding, snowboard-cross and ski-cross. Earlier this year, the IOC added women's ski jumping. Here, it added slopestyle, among other disciplines.

Shaun White is now a two-time gold medalist. The double McTwist 1260 that he threw to win gold on his second run in Vancouver, a trick he did not have to do -- he had already won gold on his first run -- but did, anyway, is one of those moments that make kids everywhere want to soar like Shaun.

"I am so stoked that slopestyle will be included in the next Olympic Games," Jamie Anderson, a six-time X Games medalist (three gold), said in a statement released by the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Assn., about the Sochi program.

Now, the contrast.

The Summer Games program for 2020 -- the IOC is already planning that far ahead after including golf and rugby for Rio in 2016 -- will involve 25 so-called "core sports," down from 26. It's not clear what will be dropped. Also in the mix, the IOC announced here, are these eight:

Baseball, softball, rock climbing, wushu, roller sports, wakeboard, karate and squash.

To frame the matter simply: when was the last time you heard a wushu competitor say he or she was stoked about the possibility of competing at the Olympics?

The IOC insists it wants to attract young people. And then it goes and throws out a short-list that doesn't take into account the range of sports that gets kids where they live.

Anyone who knows the movement understands that there are political issues involving control of skateboarding as an Olympic sport.

Those need to be resolved. Shaun White is just as good on a skateboard as he is on a snowboard. How is it that he's not being given the chance to show that at the Summer Games?

How about surfing? Come on, IOC -- tap into the endless summer, dudes! A gracious Fernando Aguerre, president of the international surfing association, issued a statement that said, "We may have missed this big wave but like any good surfer we know there are more waves to come. We will therefore continue to develop the sport of surfing on a global level and explore the best way to contribute to the Olympic movement."

Why not, for that matter, cricket? One would think the IOC would jump at the chance to get a billion-plus crazed cricket fans connected to the Olympics.

Sure, it might be complicated. There might be turf wars. Last I looked, soccer was in the Games.

As a European journalist friend of mine likes to say -- we must always work toward a solution. And, yes, the IOC can be traditionally minded. But when it wants to move, it can do so.

In the meantime, there's this. The London Games start next July 27. The men's 100-meter track and field final goes down August 5. Organizers received more than one million requests for tickets to that race. Bolt is a phenomenon, and the Olympic movement needs more phenomenal stuff.