The Great Race

This afternoon during its Olympic coverage NBC aired a terrific story called The Great Race. It was narrated by actor Sam Waterston.

It was about the 1994 4x10 km relay cross country ski race at the Lillehammer Winter Olympics. This race at the Olympics is as popular in Norway as the Super Bowl is here. And being contested on Norwegian soil, emotions in Norway were off the charts.

The race came down to Norway and Italy, with Italy winning a close victory. The video is about that race, and the personal stories involved. The 33 min. video is available here from Google Video. It costs $1.99 to download, but it is well worth it.

This article describes a little bit of how much Europeans pay attention to this race.

Forget Bode, the figure-skating judging scandal, and the Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan episode. The real drama in recent Olympic history is an epic but little-noticed struggle that began 12 years ago at the Lillehammer Games.

Since 1994, the Norwegian and Italian men's cross-country relay teams have battled head-to-head for Olympic gold over 75 miles of grueling terrain. In the nearly five hours of cumulative dueling between the two powerhouses, the total difference in their times over three Games is less than one second.

Norway won this race at the 1998 Nagano games, and also at the 2002 Salt Lake games, beating Italy by narrow margins both times.

This year, the 4x10 km relay is tomorrow, Sunday. I believe NBC will be covering the race in prime time. I'll be glued to the screen.

So, avoid hearing any news about the Olympics, so you won't know who won, and watch one of sports' greatest events.