Di Centa gives Italy a final golden moment

PRAGELATO, Italy -- Sun-warmed and inviting, the snow stretched out in front of them, tempting them onto the winding 10-kilometer course, the one that led up and back and over, crisscrossing and doubling back on itself in a delightful scribble. Eighty-two men stood there, waiting for the start, skis poised and prepared for the most grueling athletic event of the Winter Games, a two-hour-plus haul that would leave them deadened and panting as 126 minutes condensed down to one single exhilarating second.

This is it, they know, the one that proves their worth and wraps up the Olympics all in one. Yes, there was the hockey final later in the afternoon, but, somehow, that is different. Hockey doesn't seem to have the purity of purpose that the cross-country skiers have (notwithstanding, of course, the taint of the Austrian doping allegations earlier in the Games), not with the proliferation of famous, moneyed professionals.

In cross-country, all is egalitarian, the masses start in a pack, with only bib numbers to identify their chances. Almost 20 of them -- including half of the four Americans entered -- did not finish. They, like South African skier Oliver Kraas, trudged off the course, their skis upright, carrying their poles.

Depleted. Wasted. Those are the feelings this race brings. And still, 82 men stood at the start, skis strapped on.

''It's the 50K," said Greensboro, Vt.-raised Andrew Johnson, the US's top finisher at 34th. ''It's one of the oldest and most traditional of cross-country skiing. The crowds are huge, people are excited, having a good time out there."

Imagine how they felt when Giorgio di Centa, a native son of Italia, surged toward the finish line. He had led early, stayed with the fastest group, perhaps on stamina and strength borrowed from the stands. And he brought them a gold to close their Games, wearing the green, white, and red stripes around his neck, lifting them up, as the Olympics finally abandon them to their snow-capped, tree-lined mountains and breath-stealing homes and villages.

''It was quite a stressful and difficult competition for me," di Centa said, through an interpreter. ''I really hate to stay in the crowd, because that doesn't help me. I did really feel them in the stretch. I thought that I had to get up there up front, even if it is a more stressful position. I felt I had to do that because the competition is so fierce, the athletes are so good at this level."

None, though, as good as him. Not yesterday.

It was a scene of Winter Olympics perfection. Russian Eugeni Dementiev emerged from the pack, fronting the leaders through much of the final 500 meters before di Centa turned the advantage around. He finished in 2:06:11.8, to beat Dementiev by 0.8 seconds, by a blink. Dementiev returned the favor, skating across one-tenth of a second before the bronze medalist, Austrian Mikhail Botwinov.

''Today Giorgio was much stronger than myself," said Dementiev through an interpreter. ''There was nothing I could do at the finish."

It was di Centa's day, even though he might not have been who the Italian people might have predicted to win this race. That would have been fifth-place finisher, Pietro Piller Cottrer. He was just 2.2 seconds off the gold-winning pace, but it wasn't enough.

It wasn't long before discouragement turned to pride, even among those not on the medal stand. Even among those who didn't get a chance to finish. Perhaps because they had gotten a chance to start.

Kraas walked along a trampled path. His face, ragged and torn, had a glimmer of sadness as he explained his plight.

''I finished," he said, ''too early."

And, at 30, time is always running out.

For Turin, of course, it has run out, ending with the most exacting and exhausting and excruciating race of them all, the one that finished with its skiers face down in the snow, gasping for air, every last ounce of their being spent. Ending in Italian perfection, di Centa signed autographs, the creases running ever-deeper into his cheeks.

He knows, as everyone does, that this is the end. These Games are over. And, while Italy rejoiced with its newest golden token, the rest mourned. Because this place, this feeling is unlike most anything else.

The right man won, the Italian man, one who brought with him a burst of color, a surge of flags, and, yes, even passion, the kind that comes around only once every four years.