Snow adds festive note to youth games

The weather for Friday's opening ceremonies of the Moscow-Utah Youth Games was either perfect or awful, depending on your role.

A background of falling snow framed the speakers and performers, resulting in a picture-postcard winter ceremony. But the bulk of the festivities consisted of dancing, and the spinning, tapping, swinging performers had an almost impossible task keeping their feet. Many of the performers breathed obvious sighs of relief when their parts were over, glad that they hadn't taken "break a leg" to literal extremes.

The quickly melting snow also interfered with the sound system.

Ah well. For most of the spectators at Cauldron Park just south of Rice-Eccles Stadium on the University of Utah campus -- 300 of the spectators being athletes and dignitaries freshly arrived from Moscow -- it didn't seem to matter.

"It was great," said Utah volleyball player Amy Toone, who competed in the summer portion of the games in Moscow last July.

Former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt cooked up the idea of the games with Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov during the 2002 Winter Olympics, so it was Leavitt who got on stage and proclaimed the winter portion of the games officially open.

Olympic gold medal skier Nikki Stone was on hand to lead the Utah athletes across the stage, and Bountiful's American Idol contestant Carmen Rasmussen also lent her talents to the occasion.

The loudest applause, however, was reserved for Olympic gold medal wrestler Rulon Gardner, who walked from the back of the stage bearing an Olympic torch, faced the cauldron and pointed the torch at it, whereupon some fireworks appeared to ignite it. It was, incidentally, a Russian wrestler, Alexander Karelin, whom Gardner upset in a thrilling Sydney, Australia, Summer Olympics match in 2000.

The lighting of the cauldron signaled both the beginning of the youth games and the two-year anniversary of Utah's 2002 Winter Games.

"Starting now, may we catch the spirit of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games which still lingers in this stadium," Gov. Olene Walker said.

The winter youth games consist of competitions in alpine skiing, cross country skiing, curling, freestyle skiing, hockey, ski jumping, speedskating, tennis and volleyball, along with figure-skating exhibitions. Competitions begin on Sunday and end next Saturday.

Today was reserved for training and, in the case of the Muscovites, jet-lag adjustment.

The event is a mini-Olympics, Senate President and Utah Sports Commission Chairman Al Mansell said.

Luzhkov came in with the athletes on a charter Aeroflot Boeing 777 direct from Moscow. He had a busy day, being whisked from the airport to, among other places, the state Capitol to address the Senate and the administrative headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to meet with the church's First Presidency.

When asked if he worried about his athletes falling short in any of the sports, Luzhkov responded (through an interpreter), "I can't make any prognosis, but I got three medals already!"

Walker had presented Luzhkov with ceremonial gold, silver and bronze medals before the opening program began.

Given the smaller nature of the winter games and Utah's more constrained budget, the opening ceremonies did not measure up to Moscow's ceremonies last summer in pomp and spectacle. Nevertheless, organizers are confident that the games will come off well.

As Leavitt put it, "Now it's our turn." Go to www.utahsportscommission.com for competition times, locations.

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