Star-crossed, but even strength

TURIN -- Michelle Kwan didn't even get through her first practice here. Bode Miller's skis haven't caught up to his mouth. The women's hockey team could leave without a medal this week. And Apolo Anton Ohno is Oh-for-2 on the short track. Yet even though Uncle Sam's marquee names have been prime-time busts, the Americans are on track to have by far their best showing at an overseas Winter Games.

Midway through this 17-day quadrennial sleigh ride, the US has won 13 medals, seven of them gold. While that's short of the 16 the Yanks had at the same point in Salt Lake City four years ago, they've already equaled what they won in Nagano in 1998 and Lillehammer in 1994, which were the best efforts at a foreign Olympics.

Much of that is due to the snowboarders, dude, who've been insane so far. With the Alpine events still to go, the Flying Tomato and his fellow airborne flora have won six medals, three gold (shoulda been four, right, Lindsey?). In fact, eight of the medals have come in the snow sports, which is a dramatic difference from how it was in 1988, when everything came from the rink and the oval.

Except for the long-track speedskaters, who've won three golds and a silver, the ice people have been the disappointment this time. The skeleton sledders won three medals last time, zero here. The lugers, who'd managed two at each of the last two Games, came up empty, with two fourths and a flip. The women's hockey team missed open net after open net and lost to the Swedes. The men, who tied the Latvians and were dumped by the Slovaks, are in the middle of a shame spiral. And Ohno has one bronze to show for two nights' work.

Yet, the US is very much in the thick of the medal chase, trailing the Norwegians by three overall and leading the gold count, with some of its best events still outstanding. If the ice side steps up this week, the final tally easily could be more than two dozen. That's roughly what the USOC predictors had penciled in before the Games, based on results from last year's global events and mid-winter form.

Nobody expected the Americans to match the 34 medals they'd scooped up at home last time. There's normally a 40 percent drop off for the previous host at the following Games and Uncle Sam's nieces and nephews have never traveled particularly well. Something about the spartan rooms, the veal-pen shower stalls, the unfamiliar language and exotic cuisine always has kept the medal count around a dozen or less.

But with the USOC pumping cash into the winter sports ($35 million this quadrennium), with the rise of X Games events and crossover athletes from inline skating, football and track-and-field, the Americans have been steadily climbing the slippery ladder since they hit rock bottom (six medals) in Calgary in 1988. The secret has been in focusing on breadth and depth, spreading the medal hopes across numerous sports (10 in Salt Lake) and developing multiple contenders in skiing and speedskating, where the motherlode is.

That's how the Canadians, who are prepping for 2010 and the Vancouver Games, have piled up 11 in seven sports, from skeleton to freestyle. That's where the Yanks, so far, have been lagging. If the snowboarders had skipped town, grabbed skateboards and gone down to Rome to do Ollies and Salad Grinds on the Spanish Steps, the domestic count would be down there with France.

The Americans struck it rich in Utah because they mined medals from everywhere, as in three apiece from skeleton, short-track and bobsled and a couple from luge. If their performance thus far seems underwhelming, it's because they've largely come up empty in those sports.

The skeletors crashed and burned before they ever got here, what with Noelle Pikus-Pace's broken leg (by a runaway US bobsled), Zach Lund's hair-replacement issues, and coach Tim Nardiello's sexual harassment case.

With Ohno a marked man and the women overmatched by the Asians, the short-trackers might leave here with one medal. One bum race and a surprising Latvian kept Tony Benshoof off the luge podium. And unless Todd Hays has two great runs today, the best hope from the bob run may be a couple of medals.

Still, there's plenty of precious metal available during the final week. The speedskaters should be good for four more with Shani Davis and Chad Hedrick in the 1,500 meters, Hedrick in the 10,000 and Jennifer Rodriguez in the women's 1,500. The figure skaters are in the hunt for two with Sasha Cohen and dancers Tanith Belbin and Benjamin Agosto. The Alpine skiers -- most notably Ligety in the slalom -- should collect a couple, as should the freestyle aerialists.

If the tone of the opening week seemed dispiriting, it's because the big American names were overhyped, based on their résumés. Kwan hadn't competed since March and had been hurt since October. She was a long shot for any medal at all. Miller had been going south since December. The Koreans had been faster than Ohno all season. And the women's hockey team had struggled to score even before they got here, especially against their Canadian archrivals.

The Winter Games are all about who's hot right now. If you'd been following the speedskating circuit, you knew that Joey Cheek was on fire, the best bet to medal in both sprints. Skiing insiders had been raving about Ligety all season. But they weren't part of the media buildup and they didn't have their faces splashed across advertising campaigns.

The way the Lords of the Rings count, which is by gold medals won, the US is at the top of the pile at the turn. Though the Norwegians lead the overall table with 16, only two are gilded. All that glitters . . . There was a time when 13 medals was a cause for champagne in Colorado Springs. Now, it's just halfway along the road.