Play-down for Kyson and Minot

The Souris River starts up in Canada, in Saskatchewan. It meanders down south into the United States, into North Dakota, then arcs back up into Canada, into Manitoba. In Minot, North Dakota, the locals call the river the Mouse. Most years it's a lazy, placid affair.

This past June, a historic flood rocked the river basin. In Minot, a town of 41,000 people, 11,000 had to flee their homes. More than 4,000 homes ended up being in the water; more than 2,300 in six to 10 feet of water; 850 in over 10 feet of water, the mayor would later tell the Los Angeles Times.

"I try not to think about it," 17-year-old Kyson Smith said. "But it pops in my head quite a bit."

Kyson's house was one of the 850. It was the house his mom and dad, Kelby and Cyndy, had moved into the day after they were married in 1976. It was where the extended family celebrated Thanksgiving dinners and Christmas mornings and everything else.

"The water in our house came up to our ceiling," Kelby Smith said. "Our house was pretty much under water. Everything but the roof."

He added, "We've had all our memories in there."

North Dakota is a big place geographically. But it's a small place people-wise. The circle of people who are curling aficionados -- that's smaller still.

So, as they gather this week in Grafton, North Dakota, for the "play-down," or round-robin selection event, for the curling team the United States will send to the Winter Youth Olympic Games -- in Austria in February -- pretty much everyone knows what happened to Kelby, Cyndy and Kyson in Minot.

Curling is still the kind of sport where they make reference to a potential up-and-comer like Kyson by saying, well, you know, Kelby's dad curled in the U.S. men's nationals with an uncle, way back in the 195os, and don't forget that Kelby himself is competing at the U.S. senior nationals in just a few weeks.

The thing about North Dakota, where winters are long and hard and you learn early that stuff happens and you have to figure out how to make things work without whining about it, is that nobody is quite sure what to say or do about the fact that Kelby, Cyndy and Kyson are flood victims.

Not even Kelby, Cyndy and Kyson.

The house of their dreams is gone; the mortgage had been paid off long ago; the oil-related boom in North Dakota means it's now all but impossible to find affordable housing; they're living now in a FEMA-supplied trailer; the quarters, to be kind, are close.

"We're just in limbo," Kelby said. "We don't know what we're going to do," and as Thanksgiving approaches what words of encouragement sound the right notes for a hard-working American family that did all the right things but because of factors out of their control find themselves staring at a future from inside a FEMA trailer?

It's no wonder Kyson said curling "takes my mind off things." He said, "I have friends to talk to. We don't talk about the flood that much. We get focused on the game; have a good time on the ice. I don't think about it much when I curl."

The captain of Kyson's team, Alex Kitchens, also 17, lives in Devils Lake, North Dakota. "We haven't talked too much about his house being under," Alex said, though he said that he had of course been to Minot and "you could see how high the water was," adding, "If it happened to me, I would just be devastated."

Alex also said, "We definitely want to win more. It would be nice for him to have fun and get his mind off it for a while."

If you believe in signs, there's this:

On the column of the porch at their house, the Smiths had installed a curling stone. When the flood came along, the water managed to dislodge the rock. But only as far as the front steps of the porch.

Which, when the waters receded, is where they found it.

Maybe some things are just too strong to be swept away.

--

Kelby Smith asked to pass along the family's contact details to those in the curling community -- or elsewhere -- who might want to get in touch. A cellular telephone, he said, is the only number they have now. It's 701-720-8335. E-mail: kelcyky@srt.com.

The 2017 track and field vote

There can be zero doubt that Doha not only could but would stage first-class track and field championships in 2017. It staged memorable world indoor championships in 2010. I know. I was there. The Qatari capital is an amazing place. It is alive not only with resource but with ambition and imagination.

But it's in everyone's interest, including and perhaps especially the Qatar bid team, for London to win the 2017 track and field championships when the IAAF, the sport's worldwide governing body, votes Friday in Monaco.

To be clear, the IAAF is faced with a distinct choice.

It goes to a new territory. Or it recognizes that every now and then, track and field has to go back home.

Europe is where track draws its biggest audiences and London has always been the sport's touchstone.

That said, there is much to offer in going to a new territory. Indeed, international sport is aglow with expansion to "new horizons," as the Pyeongchang 2018 bid team so cleverly encapsulated it in their winning slogan this year for those Winter Olympics. Brazil, Russia, South Korea and, of course, Qatar for soccer in 2022 -- all offer the promise of expanding markets and, this is key, full government backing.

Again, such government support is essential. It's how you win the campaign and then how you run the event itself.

(Caveat: The rules are different for American bids. But these are not American bids.)

If the IAAF opts for Doha, the Qataris would refurbish Al Khalifa Stadium, which was used for the 2006 Asian Games, installing -- among other improvements -- a massive video board. They would also incorporate the air-conditioning technology already in place at the Al Sadd suburban soccer stadium.

The technology works. I have been in the stands. It was over 100 degrees (Fahrenheit) outside. In the seats and on the pitch itself, it was more like 78.

Money is no object in Doha. Everyone knows that. The Qataris are sitting on a huge deposit of natural gas, and have proven conservative about how they develop it; they're looking at a 100-year run of prosperity, intent on developing their country into a 21st-century economic, political, cultural and social force.

While much of the rest of the world may be staggering financially, the Qataris are soaring. Just one statistic from the Doha 2017 bid committee files to illustrate the point: Qatar's second-quarter 2011 GDP growth compared to second-quarter 2010: up 42 percent.

Once again, and for emphasis: up 42 percent in one year!

I have written some of these things before about Qatar but at the risk of repetition:

Northwestern, where I went to college, has opened a branch of my journalism school, Medill, in Doha. Other American universities have also opened branches there.

There is an American-style mall -- it's called Villagio and located next to both the Al Khalifa Stadium and Aspire Dome sports complex -- that rivals anything you'd find in Las Vegas.

It's about as difficult to buy a Guinness at the Irish Harp, the bar downstairs at the Sheraton, along the Corniche in central Doha, as it is at one of the pubs outside Wrigley Field in Chicago. Like, you pay the bartender.

Sport is an explicit part of the country's growth plan, down to the elementary schools, where an Olympic-style competition program -- with 92 events for boys, 62 for girls -- is part of the school year.

True enough, Qatar is one of three nations yet to send a female athlete to the Summer Games. But not because it's not trying -- as an Olympic committee spokesman has made clear in comments posted to this space over the past few months.

The 2022 World Cup is going to massively accelerate change in Qatar.

And of course the country is bidding now for the 2020 Summer Olympic Games.

It would be a coup, obviously, to win the 2017 track championships.

But -- it's a question of timing.

Doha's time will come. Maybe in 2019, and if the IAAF wants to award those championships to Doha on Friday, there would be no quarrel here.

But for 2017, as difficult as it would be for the Qataris to acknowledge, the very best thing for them and for world and Olympic sport would be for them to lose and the Brits to win.

This is, in some regard, a matter of credibility.

It would enhance Qatari credibility significantly in the short- and long-term if, in a non-transparent ballot involving 26 potential voters, in a contest that -- fair or not -- would doubtlessly be susceptible to allegations of manipulation, London were to prevail.

Life sometimes isn't fair. This is one such instance.

This 2017 track and field vote comes after the 2018 and 2022 soccer campaigns. FIFA is in the midst of purportedly intense self-examination. The Qataris have claimed they did nothing wrong to win 2022; even so, perception in politics is as important, and sometimes more so, than reality, and the perception is out there that their money skews whatever process they're involved in.

The Qataris ought to better understand that this perception is their reality.

That's the hurdle they're facing for the 2020 Summer Games, an obstacle that's so formidable it almost got them eliminated -- at the IOC executive board level -- from that campaign before it even started. It's so strong it is still far from clear that Doha, which clearly would be technically capable of staging an Olympics, will make it through to the list of cities that actually goes to the IOC vote for 2020 in September 2013.

Moreover, this 2017 vote represents something of an acid test for the Olympic movement. The International Olympic Committee has over the past decade launched a blueprint for the Games that says all cities must build into their planning the idea of real, sustainable legacy. The idea is to avoid the proverbial "white elephants," like the modernized stadium in Athens that since 2004 has mostly just been baking in the sun.

The IAAF has already recognized that stadiums purpose-built for Olympic track and field need afterward to be used for world or regional track and field championships. Beijing's Bird Nest stadium, for instance, will play host to the 2015 world championships.

London and 2017, however, will mark the first real test of the IOC build-in legacy policy.

The British government -- in the midst of a downturn that has affected most but obviously not all nations of the world -- invested roughly $20 billion in urban planning and in building projects. Olympic Stadium is the centerpiece of all of that. The track is the jewel of the stadium.

Almost three years ago, when there was tremendous pressure from soccer clubs and other interests about what to do with the track after the Games, the IAAF president, Lamine Diack, spoke up, saying that when bidding for the 2012 Games in 2005 the London team had made a promise to keep the track in place.

"I think this shows a lack of respect for my sport," Diack said amid suggestions the track might be replaced after the Games.

This week, London's 2017 bid made clear that UK Athletics would be granted a 99-year lease for use of the track at the stadium -- essentially the lifetime of the stadium.

To not vote for London now would show a thorough lack of respect for what the British government has done. It has, in every way and in tough economic times in its part of the world, demonstrated good faith and commitment, not just to the Olympic movement but to track and field. It has made good on its promises. It has delivered.

Now it's on the IAAF to do the same.

Jake Herbert: confidence guy

Northwestern plays Nebraska Saturday in college football, the Wildcats' first foray to Lincoln since the Cornhuskers were admitted to the Big Ten. The oddsmakers in Vegas have made Northwestern a decided underdog. "Northwestern by 50. Feeling confident," said Jake Herbert, who graduated from Northwestern two years ago after winning two NCAA wrestling championships and the 2009 Hodge Trophy, given to the nation's outstanding collegiate wrestler. In the NFL, the Baltimore Ravens travel Sunday to Pittsburgh to play the Steelers. Herbert grew up in North Allegheny, Pa. "You ask me how bad the Steelers are going to beat the Ravens? By 110."

"I ooze confidence," Herbert said, and this a couple days after winning gold in the 84 kilogram, or 185-pound, freestyle weight class at the Pan American Games.

All athletes have to be confident. Jake has to be super-confident. He is, without being ugly about it.

"Anything less than Olympic gold in my mind is failure," he said. "I'm not training for bronze. I'm not training just to be in the Olympics. I'm not training for anything less.

"If there's a little bit of doubt in your mind, that can be exploited. I'm there 100 percent to be getting the gold medal. I'm there to take it."

Here's why Jake has to have unshakeable belief in himself and what he's doing:

Among others, Cael Sanderson is in his weight class.

Sanderson is the 2004 Olympic gold medalist. He is now coach at Penn State. He is the only undefeated four-time NCAA champion, compiling a record of 159-0 at Iowa State, so good he made the cover of a Wheaties box. He won the Hodge Trophy not just once but three times.

There are all kinds of hints that Sanderson is making a 2012 comeback.

It can't be certain that Sanderson is, in fact, coming back.

But Herbert, like everyone, has to gear up as it if that's the case. "I'm preparing like he's going to be there," Jake said.

American Olympic wrestling history is marked by a succession of dramatic episodes in which challengers have had to beat the best to be the best.

Going all the way back to the 1984 U.S. Trials, Dave Schultz had to beat three-time world champion Lee Kemp just to make the American team. He did, and went on to win Olympic gold.

In 1988, the tables were turned: Kenny Monday had to beat Schultz to make the U.S. team. Monday won, and then won Olympic gold in Seoul.

Also in 1988, John Smith had to beat 1984 Olympic champ Randy Lewis to make the team. Smith did, and won Olympic gold.

More recently, at the 2008 Trials, Henry Cejudo had to defeat Stephen Abas, the 2004 silver medalist, to make the team. Cejudo did, and won Olympic gold.

Jake knows all these stories, rattling them off in a phone call. "Why should it be any different for me?" he asked rhetorically, adding, "If I can beat Sanderson, I can beat anybody in the world, and I can win the Olympics."

Since graduating from Northwestern, Jake has bulked up to about 200 pounds. He makes weight pretty easily -- wrestlers drop a lot of water weight in a remarkably quick amount of time without losing strength -- and said, "I'm a 200-pound man wrestling 185. That strength showed off in the Pan Ams. It's great to feel stronger, tougher, better than your opponents."

Perhaps just as important, "Mentally, I'm right there."

Jake has recent wins over, among others, Sharif Sharifov of Azerbaijan and Mihail Ganev of Bulgaria.

Sharifov won the 2011 world gold medal. At those 2011 worlds, Sharifov defeated Sanderson.

Ganev is the 2010 world champ.

With his coach, Sean Bormet, Jake is now training in Ann Arbor. "This is the real stuff," he said. "It's physical chess. Position is always going to beat strength."

There's only one downside, for a Northwestern guy, to being in Ann Arbor: "It's not just the college kids. It's 60-year-old men and 3-year-old kids. They're all wearing maize-and-blue."

There's only one antidote, he said: "I wear my Wildcat gear."

Jake added, "My job now is -- I have to put together the two best tournaments of my life. The Trials -- go out there and make the team. Then -- go out there and make the Olympics."

Kikkan Randall's conditioning thing

Every July 4th in Seward, Alaska, there's a race called Mount Marathon. It's not a marathon. It's a different kind of ordeal.

One of the oldest-known races in the United States, dating to 1915, it's a 3 1/2-mile torture that goes up and then back down a 3,022-foot mountain. You come down in about a third the time it takes to go up; in all, the winner -- at least on the women's side -- takes just over 50 minutes. Outside of the Iditarod, the sled race, it might be one of Alaska's premier sporting events. Big local bragging rights are involved -- for instance, Nina Kemppel, who raced in four Olympic Winter Games over her cross-country career with the U.S. Ski Team, is a nine-time winner.

In the Randall household, there was this: Mom Debbie won the race in 1975. Aunt Betsy, who competed as a cross-country skier in the 1980 Lake Placid Olympic Games, won it three times, from 1979 to 1981. Daughter Kikkan -- well, as a cross-country skier, Kikkan might well have won a world championship silver medal in 2009, might have recorded two World Cup wins, might last season have become the first American woman ever to make the podium (third) in the final World Cup sprint standings …

But she had yet to win Mount Marathon.

Four times she was a runner-up.

Until this past July 4.

When Kikkan, racing side by side with Alaska Pacific University club teammate Holly Brooks for most of the race, finally broke through -- winning in 52:03, Holly 19 seconds behind.

The U.S. Ski Team leaves for Europe in just a few days; the World Cup cross-country season starts in Norway on Nov. 19. Kikkan Randall just wrapped up a summer of training that makes you understand fully the dedication and drive of championship athletes.

They are indeed different from the rest of us.

Mind you -- this isn't even an Olympic year.

There are two long years to go, in fact, before we even get to the Olympic year. This is the kind of year where even the most seasoned pros can find it difficult to sustain their energy.

Not Kikkan.

Even on vacation -- in Maui, at the end of April, with her husband, Jeff Ellis -- a really, really fun day was not to idle on the beach with fruity drinks. Oh, no. A really, really fun day was to go for a three- or four-hour bike ride.

"Every once in a while he looks at me and rolls his eyes and tells me I'm crazy," she said, laughing.

Then again, she said, when training for the winter season began in earnest on May 1, those bike rides meant "my body wasn't starting from total standstill."

Look, let's face it, Kikkan said: "I definitely like to be doing stuff."

Like:

Training in the back-country in Alaska with her Alaska Pacific club team.

Doing a triathlon and setting a new PR in the running leg. In Alaska, when they hold a triathlon in May, they have to make allowances for the swim portion -- they do it in a pool.

Heading to Sweden for more than two weeks of training with the national team there. And here was a revelation. It used to be that the Europeans thought little, if at all, about the American cross-country performers. Now that Americans are winners in the sprints, though, the Europeans have noticed. "Two years ago, I was there to learn and watch. Now they are there to observe me," Kikkan said.

Back to Alaska for Mount Marathon and then several weeks of "pretty hard weeks of training."

Cut in with all of that were visits to schools for a program called "Healthy Futures" and work with another initiative that Kikkan supports called "Fast and Female."  She said, "I benefitted from having great opportunities to play sports and then be active. It empowered me. I want kids to have those same opportunities that I did. A little hard work pays off -- you can do anything if you have belief in yourself."

Which is where she finds herself this World Cup season. She has proven herself in the sprints. Now -- the distances.

She said, "Every year I am getting closer. It just takes time to develop fitness and the confidence to race with those girls. In a couple years, I can be challenging for the top in the distance races as well.

"Kris Freeman," one of the top American men, "has been so close several times, Kikkan said. "He has shown it is possible."

Kikkan is 28. In Sochi in 2014, she will be 31. If she were a gymnast, at 31 she would be an old lady. For a cross-country skier, it's entirely different. She said, "I feel like I am just now entering my stride. Most people would be winding down. Mine is just now speeding up."

U.S. women's water polo: the crucible of 2011

If, next summer in London, the U.S. women's water polo team wins Olympic gold, it will be because of the crucible of 2011. At the quarterfinals of the world championships in Shanghai, the U.S. women endured a brutal loss to Russia. Then, a couple days ago, at the championships of the Pan Am Games in Guadalajara, with an Olympic berth on the line, they pulled out an epic victory.

Rallying from four goals down midway through the third period, the Americans managed to tie the game at 8-8 the end of regulation. That was followed by the two standard overtime periods; no scores. Time for a shootout.

Five shots.

Ten.

Fifteen.

Still no winner.

Mind you, that was because the Americans -- with one block -- kept making shots. But so -- with one block, by American goalie Betsey Armstrong -- did the Canadians.

Brenda Villa, 31, an attacker who not only has been to three Olympic Games on the U.S. team but is the FINA Magazine female water polo player of the last decade, nailed four -- count 'em, four -- shots herself.

"Just going up there to shoot -- it's for your team so you have to lose all your thoughts so you don't get too nervous," she said. "It's just business."

Finally, it came to this: 18-year-old attacker Maggie Steffens nailed yet another shot for the Americans. The Canadians missed.

The final score, and this was water polo, not football: 27-26.

The Americans converted 19 of 20 opportunities in the shootout. That's just plain gutsy.

"It was crazy," said Courtney Mathewson, another American attacker. "We prevailed because we believe in ourselves. There is no panic when we are down by three or four. I think we believed in each other and that was the difference."

Adam Krikorian, the U.S. coach, said, "I told the girls this is the greatest game I've ever been a part of -- maybe the most courageous, most mentally tough group of girls during one game that I've ever seen.

In the celebrations on the pool deck and afterward there was this:

Two months ago -- it's not clear the Americans would have won this game.

In Shanghai, up 6-2 in the third period against Russia in the quarterfinals, the Americans gave up five straight goals, lost 9-7 and then ended up finishing sixth at the worlds.

It was dispiriting and disheartening -- and yet exactly, in a weird way, perhaps what this team needed.

After the 2008 Games, the women's team switched gears, Krikorian taking over as coach from Guy Baker. The team, though, kept on winning, and winning, and winning -- over the years everything except Olympic gold.

The U.S. women took silver in Sydney in 2000, bronze in Athens in 2004, silver again in Beijing in 2008.

Krikorian, at the beginning of 2011, put his charges through what was essentially a boot camp. He promised it would toughen them up physically and mentally. Physically, there was no doubt -- several of them swimming lap times faster than ever before.

The loss in Shanghai could have swung things two ways.

It could have turned the team against Krikorian. After all, that loss was the first meaningful defeat for the U.S. team in a long time.

Instead -- everyone came home and doubled down. Together.

All in. Players, staff, coaches.

With buy-in, anything and everything becomes possible.

In Shanghai, "I don't think we were united there as a team yet," Villa said. "Not buying in but having complete faith in each other. It showed [against Canada]. It's great to come together and do that, and as we move forward it's only going to get -- our bond, it's only going to get stronger."

Armstrong, the team's No. 1 goalie, added, "It's easy to say now that we won this game that it's the case but leading up to this tournament it motivated this time to connect. It's almost a cliché that it was the best thing to happen to us but it is It was the motivating factor for us to come together as a group to work hard in the pool."

Krikorian echoed, "When you continue to win, it's easy to put things that are important on the back burner. When you finally face defeat and stare it down and chew on it for two, two and a half months, it makes you re-evaluate things, staff included.

"It was the first time during a game, a close game, in the last two years for me that I felt like the group had taken it over. It was actually out of my hands. That's what I'm looking for. That's what I want to see. That's what great leaders do; that's what great teams do. They take it upon themselves. They did it in four quarters. They held strong."

There's a break now for this team for November, and then they're back at it again, looking now toward London. There are three weddings on tap this month -- Mathewson, utility Lauren Wenger and team leader Jennifer Adams.

"All three of their weddings," Krikorian said, and he laughed, "might be that much more enjoyable."

Katherine Reutter: skating because she loves it

One of short-track speedskater Katherine Reutter's favorite movies is "Cool Runnings," the 1993 Jamaican bobsled flick. "This is corny," she said, giggling, which is understandable, because turning to John Candy as a source of wisdom can prove a risky play.

Except in this case. In the movie, Candy, playing Irv Blitzer, the fictional bobsled Olympic medalist turned bookie Jamaican-team coach, actually delivers a message that's dead-on serious and that's crystal clear.

"… A gold medal is a wonderful thing," Irv Blitzer says. "But if you're not enough without one, you'll never be enough with one."

"I just realized," Katherine Reutter was saying, and it's more than 18 months now since she won two medals at Vancouver Olympics, a silver in the 1000 and a bronze in the 3000 relay, "I had let my entire life revolve around getting medals. I was doing it out of medal hunger. Since the Olympics, I have transitioned to seeing my sport out of love, and a desire to get better.

"And you know what? By focusing on what I need to do to get better, the medals will follow."

Last weekend, at the first short-track World Cup event of the season, at the oval in Kearns, Utah, Reutter raced the 1500 twice. She won twice.

On Saturday, she won in 2:24.433. Canada's Valerie Maltais came in second, South Korea's Lee Eun-Byul third.

On Sunday, she won in 2:24.005, with Lee second and China's Li Jianrou third.

On the men's side, American J.R. Celski -- in his first World Cup races since Vancouver -- took a bronze in Sunday's 1500. He was disqualified in Saturday's 1000, called for impeding South Korean Noh Jinkyu; Noh won that 1500.

Reutter, 23, is last year's world champion in the 1500. She has been back been training only since mid-September.

She said: "The immaturity -- the only thing in my head used to be, 'Go! Go! Go!' Stretch farther! Do everything better!' Now I'm at a point where I haven't had a lot of injuries but the injuries I have had -- I've made them count.

"If I want longevity," Reutter said, looking toward Sochi and 2014, and that's a long two and a half years away, "I can not go all the time. I have to be smart about where and how I go."

The corollary, she said, is that at 23 she naturally has interests beyond the rink. The trick is to find the appropriate balance -- to sustain the intensity that being best in the world demands while at the same time moving beyond a one-dimensional portrait of herself.

Another of her favorite sayings, she said, hangs on the walls of the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. In essence, it says to train like you have everything to prove but compete like you're the best.

She said, "It's so true. When I am racing, I do everything in my power to win that race. When I'm training, the only thing in my mind is what do I have to do to take it away from other people -- how hard do I have to work to be able to take it away from other people."

No longer, though, does that mean that it's a 24/7 deal.

And, critically -- that is not necessarily a bad thing.

Not at all.

Irv Blitzer would understand.

Seriously.

"My relationship with the sport has changed," she said. "I was willing to sacrifice everything because all I wanted was that medal."

Now, "I can be both Katherine myself and Katherine the world-class speedskater. I don't have to sacrifice one thing or everything to be this."

She also said, "I am trying to train smarter and continuing to keep my eyes in the right place and make my dreams come true. That's what the Olympics are all about. For you and for your country. I don't feel any pressure. How can you not rise to that occasion when you have the opportunity to do it for you, for your country, for every person who has ever believed in you?"

Americans get 1-2-3 magic in dressage

Steffen Peters is a world-class horseman, and that is an understatement. The man is a two-time Olympian. He won team bronze in dressage at the Atlanta Games in 1996. He was fourth in both the individual event in Beijing in 2008. He is  the 2009 World Cup champion and won two individual bronze medals at the 2010 world championships.

On a horse named Weltino's Magic, Peters has gone undefeated in 2011. Yet it took all his considerable skill, talent, experience, savvy, horsemanship -- all of it -- for him to prevail in one of the most interesting and engaging dressage competitions in recent memory at the Pan American Games in Guadalajara, Mexico.

Peters led an American sweep of the medals. His final score: 82.690. In second place: Heather Blitz, riding a horse named Paragon, with 81.917. Third: Marisa Festerling, on Big Tyme, with 77.545.

The American 1-2-3 in the individual event came after the U.S. team captured gold in the team event, its fourth consecutive team dressage medal at the Pan Ams. Canada took silver, Colombia bronze.

In the team event, Peters put up a mark of 80.132, a Pan Am Games record.

For those who are mystified by the nuances of dressage, indeed by equestrian in general, by the outfits and the hats -- let's put all that aside. There's plenty about the sport that makes perfect sense to anyone and everyone.

At its essence, the sport is about the ancient connection between a human being and a horse.

At its best, that connection is profound, indeed spiritual and perhaps even almost mystical.

Magic, the horse Peters rode, is now 9 years old.

Peters -- who was born in Germany but has been in the U.S. since 1985, an American citizen since 1992 and has lived and trained for years in the San Diego area -- has ridden another horse, Ravel, in most Grand Prix-level events over the past five years. Assuming Peters is on the U.S. team for London -- Ravel will still be the 2012 horse for him.

Which only tells you how huge Magic's upside can be.

Peters' wife, Shannon, trained Magic from the time they got him at 4 until the horse was 7, and then, as he said, she "very generously turned the reins over to me."

As anyone who has ever been around horses knows, every horse has a distinct personality. Magic is "one of those guys who wouldn't mind laying on the couch all day on Sunday and watching football," Peters said, laughing. "Even though he is laid-back, he is still a sensitive horse," and also pretty darn smart.

Peters played a lot of soccer growing up. His ankles crack. When he walks down to the barn, Magic can hear him coming. That means two things. One, the horse is "extremely food motivated," Peters said, so he knows something good is coming his way. Two, "he is not a horse you have to push to get motivated -- he offers it."

To go undefeated for an entire year -- that proves it.

Especially to beat a horse like Paragon and rider the caliber of Heather Blitz.

Paragon's story is phenomenal, really.

To begin, the horse stands 18 hands high. That's huge.

Paragon survived 2005's Hurricane Katrina, as a very young horse at a 2,000-acre ranch about 45 minutes north of New Orleans where the pine trees grew up to 100 feet tall and the tree damage proved catastrophic.

The horse is now 8. "He is definitely a people horse," Blitz, who is based now in Wellington, Fla., said. "And has been from the day he was born. He is really centered on people, more than other horses. He is very friendly and loves attention. But he is not spoiled and he's not annoying about it. He loves his life. He's happy. He's content. He tries really hard to do what I ask him to do."

In the individual event, she said, "I knew he'd be strong. He's always strong. I knew I'd be strong, too," Blitz said. "I knew I would not have to make a single mistake. Not one foot in the wrong place, not one second of tension. I would have to be perfect to move into the first spot.

"I had a couple things that didn't go perfectly," she said. But, she added, it's okay.

Equestrian is typically such an individualized pursuit that at the Pan Ams it was rewarding to compete together -- the Americans had labeled themselves a "dream team" -- and to then compete against each other in the individual event but root for each other, too.

"I am very satisfied with my placing," Blitz said. "Actually -- thrilled with it."

"I knew it was close," Peters said of the final individual scoring. "When I heard my score, the first thing I did was ask Heather, 'Are you okay?' Heather had a big smile and said, 'I'm okay.' I'm happy. That meant the world to me. It's nice to win. But it's not nice to beat your friend and teammate."

Lindsey Vonn makes a statement

Lindsey Vonn, the best ski racer in American history, has won races, titles, Olympic medals, championships. But in her career, she had never won a World Cup giant slalom. Now she has, and in typical fashion.

She made history, and lots of it. She won despite being hurt -- coming back from a training crash, which throughout her career she has made something of a habit of. This time, it was a fall last Saturday.

After not being on her skis for a week, Vonn got back on them on Saturday in Solden, Austria, and ripped down the bottom part of the second of two runs to win the giant slalom in the World Cup season opener by four-hundredths of a second.

Her combined time: 2:24.43.

"It was a lot of relief, joy, excitement," she said. "You know, I kind of felt like the Olympics. I had been working so hard to finally get on the top step and I finally did it."

Viktoria Rebensburg of Germany, the 2010 Vancouver Games champion in the event, finished second. Elisabeth Gorgl of Austria, was four-tenths of a second back in third.

Maria Hofl-Riesch of Germany, who defeated Vonn by a mere three points last season for the overall World Cup crown, finished 24th, 3.13 seconds behind.

Julia Mancuso of the United States finished 10th.

Vonn's win was one for many lines in the history books:

She became just the fifth woman to win a race in all five World Cup disciplines.

The others: Sweden's Pernilla Wiberg, Croatia's Janica Kostelic, Sweden's Anja Paerson and Austria's Petra Kronberger.

Vonn is only the second American to win all five disciplines, after Bode Miller.

The victory was Vonn's 42nd on the World Cup circuit, most-ever by an American.

It was the first American World Cup giant slalom win since 1991 (Julie Parisien, in Waterville Valley) and the first American World Cup giant slalom win in Europe since 1984 (Tamara McKinney, in Zwiesel).

It was the first American win in Soelden since Miller went back-to-back in 2003 and 2004. (The U.S. men race in Soelden on Sunday.)

The victory also moves Vonn into a tie with Paerson as the fourth-winningest woman in World Cup history.

Last season, Vonn used men's skis in only the downhill and the super-G. This year, she intends to use men's skis in all her events; she made the switch while training this summer.

"For me, it's faster," she said. "It's holding better on ice."

After Saturday's first run, Vonn was fourth. She was nearly nine-tenths out after the first split on the second run, then made the time up on the bottom.

Vonn is of course the World Cup overall champ in 2008, 2009 and 2010. It's a long, long season. But winning the first race, in a race that hadn't been your specialty but may now be -- that's a statement.

"What's important about today's result is that it gets me off to a quick and strong start," Vonn said. "Last year I really got off to a slow start, and while I came on strong at the end, I fell a little short.

"This summer when I was training I was really conscious of making sure I was prepared for the first events."

Haley Johnson: content and thankful

To everything there is a season. The winter sports season is about begin again. Haley Johnson, a member of the 2010 U.S. Olympic biathlon team who had both her most challenging and ultimately best season last season, who at 29 is in her prime competition years in a sport that rewards endurance, has contentedly called it quits. There's a terrific lesson in Haley's transition.

It takes great courage to go out on your own terms.

Oh -- and by, the way, you don't have to win Olympic gold to absolutely be a winner.

It's not that US Biathlon wouldn't want Haley back. She collected nine of her top 12 World Cup results in 2011; last spring, as the tour reached its end in Oslo, Norway, she finished 22nd in the sprint, 21st in the pursuit and 27th in the mass start, her best-ever weekend of racing.

All this after having started the year way back in NorAms in December.

In essence -- having worked her way back up one more time from double-A ball to the big stage.

In a lengthy letter she wrote that explained her decision to step away from competitive biathlon, Haley said, "My season could not have ended in a more exciting way as I crossed the finish line in the mass start competition in Oslo in March. Not only a personal best for myself, it was also a personal best for US Biathlon. I crossed the line with the truest sense of reaching my potential …"

That letter was addressed to US Biathlon's executive director, Max Cobb; to the federation's board of directors; and to the US Biathon foundation.

It goes on to say: "I am very glad to have grown up through the biathlon family and I appreciate all of my teammates and staff along the way. Upon returning home after the Mass Start race in Oslo I felt a great sense of completeness. Collectively, all of the people, places and experiences contributed to one of the greatest parts of my life. And for this I could not thank you all enough."

Some at the annual biathlon awards dinner -- which was held last Saturday in Park City, Utah -- admitted without shame that they cried when they read Haley's letter. She was among those honored at the ceremony.

In the letter, Haley also says, "I believe that my athletic potential has yet to peak and that it would be realistic to set my sights on the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. However, my priorities have changed and I truly believe in the next pursuits of personal excellence in other areas of life."

For one, Haley and her fiancé, Dave Stewart, who is the head Nordic coach at the University of Denver, naturally have some details to attend to. They're getting married next August near her home town of Lake Placid, N.Y.

"A small wedding but we have big families," she said.

They met in 2003. It was love at first sight. "It was," she said, laughing. "It was pretty cool."

Haley is halfway through getting her college degree, finishing up at Denver after two years at Bates College, majoring now in public policy and social services.

"I felt all these stirrings not only the last year but the last couple of years," she said. "I couldn't just be an athlete."

At the beginning of last season, when she was back in the NorAm circuit after having been in the Olympics just months before -- that was because she simply wasn't shooting well. "It was just this one small piece I needed to fix, not this whole thing … that's why I never even thought about throwing in the towel.

"I had such a strong conviction I was going to set such a new track, I just let that go. I quietly reveled in my accomplishments. I knew I had a tall ladder in front of me. I never thought about which rung I was on and which rung I stepped away from. I tried to stay in the moment. I just stayed very much in the present."

The truth is, Haley wasn't even supposed to even be in Oslo.

She felt she had "missed that perfect little sweet spot that comes with peak performance" at the world championships, which had been held immediately beforehand in Russia.

The decision about who would go to Oslo was up to the U.S. coaches.

And then they said -- Haley, you're in.

"Then the magic began," she said.

"I basically seized the opportunity of being granted the gift of one extra week," with those best-ever results.

"I have been given that advice before," of treating every competition like a gift, "but it wasn't like that until [Oslo]," she said. "It can take an entire career to learn valuable things.

"Maybe," Haley Johnson said, contentedly, "I'll get to use it again in some other situation."

USATF boldly does something right

Wait. What's this? USA Track & Field, arguably the most dysfunctional of all major American Olympic sports federations, maybe getting something not just right but possibly taking an ambitious step to profoundly reshape the future direction of the sport in the United States and even worldwide? For real.

In announcing Monday that it had retained Indianapolis-based Max Siegel Inc. as part of a wide-ranging plan to restructure its marketing and communications efforts, USATF boldly steps into the 21st century.

Siegel is a guy who gets the vision thing, the commercial thing and the relationship thing. USATF needs precisely that sort of help.

No recitation of Siegel's extraordinary life story and career seems to do it justice. Here's a very short take:

He has represented the likes of pro football star Reggie White and baseball great Tony Gwynn. Siegel was president of global operations at Dale Earnhardt Inc. and a senior executive at Sony/BMG, serving on the executive team overseeing pop stars such as Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Usher and then gospel greats such as Kirk Franklin, Fred Hammond and Donnie McClurkin.

Now he is has his own race team, Revolution Racing, and it wins. His company, MSI, represents sports figures and organizations. It creates literary, television and film properties, including the 2010 BET Network series, "Changing Lanes," and the ESPN documentary, "Wendell Scott: A Race Story."

In short, Siegel is a winner across sports, sponsorship and entertainment lines.

The freaky thing is that Siegel actually wants to help USATF.

When he assesses track and field, he said in an interview, "I see all these heroes and I see the opportunity to expand the brand."

USATF has tried substantive change in the not-too-distant past. It hired Doug Logan, a change agent, to be its chief executive officer; soon enough, it didn't like the changes Logan proposed; it then fired the agent.

Other Olympic bodies, of course, have also gone outside the so-called "Olympic family" with similarly dim results.

The U.S. Olympic Committee, for instance, turned twice over the past 10 years to outsiders for its chief executive position -- Stephanie Streeter and Lloyd Ward. Each lasted a short time.

Critically, Siegel is not being hired to run USATF itself.

Again, he is not being hired as CEO.

For emphasis, USATF has an interim chief executive, Mike McNees, who has kept things moving steadily, quietly forward, seeking little screen credit.

Nothing gets done in the Olympic world without relationships. Siegel is a former director on the USATF board and the USA Swimming Foundation; he has ties to other Olympic sports as well. If you were paying attention at the USOC assembly last month in Colorado Springs, you saw him there and might have wondered why. Now you know.

The CEO thing is an entirely separate discussion at USATF. What's at issue now is that, like a patient in therapy, USATF realized that it might, you know, actually help itself -- in this case, its business model -- if it just acknowledged it first had a problem and was then willing to do something constructively about it.

Here is the problem:

The sport is stagnant in the United States.

The release USATF issued Monday says that engaging Siegel's company is part of a "broad, fully integrated service agreement that will unite USATF's commercial ventures" and that "streamlines its internal staff structure in marketing and communications."

Translation: major culture change.

They're actually going to throw some resource at the problem -- pulling together staff from five separate departments, for instance, to work together with Siegel's firm -- with the intent of making some real money by expanding the reach of USATF's commercial efforts in marketing, sponsorship, publicity, membership and broadcasting.

All of that.

To reiterate: USATF is thinking big. Finally.

Jill Geer, the longtime communications chief at USATF, who through thick and thin has always been outstanding in not just her dedication but performance, will oversee all of this. As a sign of just how serious this is, she and her family are moving from New England to Indianapolis.

To reference "culture" again -- track and field shines during the second week of the Summer Games and then all but disappears for pretty much the next three years and 50 weeks. That has to change. Siegel gets it -- that track and field has to again become part of our national discussion.

That's not going to happen overnight. It may not even happen by the start of the London Games. These things take time.

Siegel understands we live now in a culture where reality-TV rocks the ratings. Why not, for instance, a "making the U.S. team" series?

How about the notion of staging a specialty event -- say women's high-jumping, in Vegas, to the back beat of rock or hip-hop music?

Street racing might be cool. How about down Bourbon Street in New Orleans? Or Navy Pier in Chicago?

Anything and everything that might work has to be and should be up for discussion.

Look, two things.

One, the world championships in track and field have never been held in the United States.

Two, childhood obesity has more than tripled in the past 30 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The percentage of children aged 6 to 11 in the United States who were obese went from 7 percent in 1980 to nearly 20 percent in 2008. Over the same period, the percentage of adolescents -- ages 12 to 19 -- who were obese increased from 5 percent to 18 percent, according to the CDC.

That is obscene.

Track and field is the easiest way to start getting a fix on that, because the great majority of those young people can put on a pair of shoes and start walking and then running. And if Max Siegel, who is big on getting tastemakers on board to help impact our popular culture, can do it -- bravo.

"I think this is a two- to five-year fix," he said, referring specifically to USATF -- not, this must be stressed, the nation's obesity issues.

"Year one is restoring the credibility and solidifying the relationship with the core fans and core stakeholders. For me, no matter what you do, there are critics. I think it's going to take points on the board to achieve credibility and get the trust built back up.

"The second phase is to build brand equity," USATF revamping its television strategy in particular.

Phase Three, he said, while always emphasizing service to the "core constituency," can also include a turn toward "new and innovative things."

He said, "I have been a firm believe that sports and entertainment when used properly is a very powerful way to impact culture.

"You've got have something meaningful," and the best news of all for track and field in the United States would be if, finally, it were again -- year-round, day-after-day -- meaningful.