02/17/2001

Associated Press

PARK CITY, Utah – Imagine going headfirst at 90 mph down an icy chute, your chin only inches above the chilly surface.

No bones about it, the X-Games will meet the Olympics next year when the sport of skeleton is staged at the Salt Lake Games.

"If you have a Corvette, settle into the seat and just floor it," said American racer Chris Soule of San Francisco. "Then try to catch the dollar bill that you left on the dashboard."

The average sports fan might be more familiar with bobsled or luge, but skeleton was the first of the so-called sliding sports. It got its name because one of the first sleds in 1892 looked like a skeleton.

The sport hasn't been part of the Winter Olympics since 1948 in St. Moritz, fading from popularity until a European resurgence in the late 1970s. It's returning, for men and women, at the Salt Lake Olympics.

If it seems absurd to award medals for something most children do for thrills in mid-January at the city park, consider that in Sydney somebody won the first gold medal awarded in trampoline

Lincoln DeWitt is proof that someone can be good as something they started on a whim. The Park City resident won the World Cup overall title on Friday, beating world champion Martin Rettl of Austria and Gregor Staehli of Switzerland.

Jim Shea, a former world champion from Lake Placid, N.Y., placed fourth, and Soule was eighth, giving the Americans confidence for the Olympics.

"The Americans will be on top," DeWitt predicted. "I don't know which one."

It could be DeWitt, a 33-year-old computer programer who moved to Utah from Bennington, Vt., about 10 years ago to be a ski instructor. He got his first taste of skeleton only three years ago.

Sitting around a friend's home, DeWitt finally gave in to his buddy's urgings to check out the bobsled and luge track that had just been built for the Olympics. They came across a skeleton training program.

"I was hooked after the first run," DeWitt said.

For spectators, skeleton has been described as like watching a Stealth Fighter on ice. Unlike the rickety bobsleds or rumbling luge racers, skeleton competitors seem to glide effortlessly through the turns at extreme speeds.

With their black bodysuits and rounded helmets, the athletes even look like high-tech fighter pilots.

Soule said in the tight turns, it feels like there's a 40-pound weight on your neck, making it a challenge to keep the chin off the ice. When a racer hits a wall, he said "it's like getting punched really hard by Mike Tyson."

Some of the athletes seem as extreme as their sport. Rettl dyed the top of his hair bright red while the sides were purplish-blue. You'd never guess he'll be back on the job next week as an air traffic controller at the Innsbruck airport.

"I'm going home to work now," he said with a smile as he left the interview room.