No Alpine skier has won more Olympic medals than Norway's Kjetil Andre Aamodt.
He captured the first two of his seven -- a gold and a bronze -- at the precocious age of 20 in the 1992 Albertville Games. His last two were gold in the super-G and combined at Salt Lake City four years ago.
Now Aamodt is back for more -- a threat in all five disciplines, beginning with today's downhill, in his fifth Olympic Games.
"When you're 34, the World Cup is everyday life," he said, "but the Olympics is something special. You get a little extra nerve, and the nerve makes you a better competitive skier."
Few have been better than the soft-spoken Aamodt, whose career stretches from the era of the gregarious Italian star Alberto Tomba to the wild-child behavior of American Bode Miller. Through it all, Aamodt has won with quiet precision and absolutely no bombast.
"I'm an all-around skier," he said simply after his seventh-place finish in Friday's downhill training run. "I love skiing."
Asked if he could say something controversial like Miller, Aamodt smiled and replied, "I'm not that kind of guy. I'll keep those thoughts for myself."
Aamodt had one of his worst seasons a year ago, finishing 26th in the overall standings. But, as he has said, the Olympics bring out his best. In his final race before Turin, he was third behind Christoph Gruber of Austria and American Scott Macartney.
Competitors are always wary of Aamodt and his longtime Norwegian teammate Lasse Kjus, who has five Olympic medals.
"They are very strong so we have to look at them," said Austrian Benjamin Raich. "We will see. Especially at the Olympics they are always very strong."
Kjus, 35, bothered by illness this winter, was 17th in Friday's run.
"He has a chronic respiratory condition," Norwegian Alpine team doctor Arild Danielsen said, "which means it takes him longer to get over colds and flu. He has had two bouts of flu, one in November and one at Christmas, which has reduced the time he has been able to ski in training."
Whatever the finish, the two have cemented their status among the greatest of Norwegian athletes.
"Even, if you aren't into sports, people really know who they are," said Per Lund, Alpine manager for the Norwegian ski federation. "Kjus and Aamodt, everyone in Norway knows them."
In Albertville, Aamodt was barely out of the junior ranks. Recovering from mononucleosis, he won gold in the super-G. He followed a few days later with a bronze in the slalom, behind gold medalist Tomba and silver medalist Marc Girardelli of Luxembourg.
His only overall world championship came two years later, when he also won two silvers and a bronze at the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics.
When one of the Norwegian greats faltered, his teammate often picked up the slack.
In 1998, Aamodt finished no better than fifth in the super-G in Nagano, but his teammate Kjus won silvers in the downhill and combined. Because of weather delays, he raced in both the regular downhill and combined downhill on the same day.
Aamodt is staying in the athletes' village for the first time, mainly because it's close to the competition sites. He mildly criticizes the conditions as ``unfinished, somewhat dirty.''
But he quickly switches to praising the Italians for the conditions on the slopes, where he said the quality of the competition is the same as it was back in Albertville 14 years ago.
"The competition is always hard," Aamodt said. "It's always hard to win Olympic medals. It's not more difficult than before. It's always hard at the top, so we'll see."
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