Olympic greats Tretiak, Rodnina light cauldron
SOCHI, Russia — One of the greatest goaltenders of all time and an innovative figure skater who won three straight Olympic pairs titles lit the cauldron together Friday night at the opening ceremony of the Sochi Games.
Vladislav Tretiak and Irina Rodnina were given the honor of sparking the cauldron that will burn throughout Russia’s first Winter Olympics.
They were handed the torch by Alina Kabayeva, a former Olympic champion gymnast who has been linked romantically with Russian President Vladimir Putin, although the Kremlin has denied it. Other torchbearers in the final group were wrestling great Alexander Karelin, pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva and tennis star Maria Sharapova.
Tretiak was a star on the great Soviet Union hockey teams of the 1970s and ’ 80s, and is usually called the best goalie ever by those who saw him play.
He was the first Russianborn player to enter the Hockey Hall of Fame and won Olympic gold medals with Soviet teams in 1972, 1976 and 1984.
But he only got silver after his team was upset by the United States in the “Miracle on Ice” in 1980. In the first period of that game, Tretiak allowed two goals, and legendary Soviet coach Viktor Tikhonov unexpectedly replaced him with Vladimir Mishkin in an apparent move to shake up his complacent team.
“It was difficult for me to sit on the bench with the score 2- 2,” Tretiak said at the Vancouver Olympics in 2010, the 30th anniversary of the upset. “If I played the second and third period, the game might have turned a different way.”
Rodnina won her three gold medals with two different partners at the 1972, 1976 and 1980 Olympics. She also won 10 world pairs titles in a row, matching the great Sonja Henie.
She was known for pioneering jumps that made her the dominant female pairs skater of her era. After winning the 1972 Olympic title with Alexei Ulanov, she won the following two golds with Alexander Zaitsev.
She moved to the United States in 1990 to work as a coach and guided a Czech pair to a world title.
Diffey leaves racing for Olympic debut
CHARLOTTE, N. C. — Leigh Diffey’s career has almost exclusively been devoted to covering motorsports.
That didn’t stop NBC from carving out a role for the announcer in its coverage of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
Diffey is taking a break from the race track and making his Olympic debut as the play- byplay announcer for bobsled, skeleton and luge during NBC’s coverage of the games, which get underway in earnest this weekend.
“Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine this is where my career would take me,” Diffey told The Associated Press in a recent telephone interview. “Just working for NBC, that alone made my life. Now going to the Olympics for NBC? I just pinch myself as if to wonder is this really happening?”
An Australian who began his broadcasting career covering V8 Supercars in his native country and then the World Superbike Championship and WRC for the BBC, Diffey eventually moved to the United States and became a longtime member of the now- defunct Speed Channel.
He was a familiar announcer and host for just about anything with wheels ranging from NASCAR, Grand- AM, MotoGP, Formula One, CART and the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Diffey has deep resources in the booth to assistant him. He’s surrounded by analysts John Morgan, a former U. S. National Bobsled Team member working his ninth consecutive Winter Olympics, three- time Olympian Duncan Kennedy during the luge and 2010 Olympic bobsledder and former skeleton racer Bree Schaaf. Lewis Johnson, who will be working his eighth Olympics for NBC, will be the reporter for all three disciplines.
Even with that safety net and the deep NBC research department, Diffey has been studying endlessly to learn as much as he can. He’s done it
while maintaining his regular schedule: Leading up to his departure for Russia, Diffey called the Dakar Rally from a studio in the U. S., and inducted Mario Andretti into the National Motorsports Press Association Hall of Fame.
“I’ve been soaking it up, trying to be a sponge, preparing the same way you would for any sport,” Diffey said. “It would be a little arrogant to say, ‘ It’s just racing,’ because it is a different form of racing. But at the end of the day, there is a beginning, a middle and an end. There’s also a story to tell, and it’s my job to tell the story the best I can.”