Judd's Notes: Olympic sunset on the horizon

TURIN, Italy — It's drawing all-too swiftly to a close.

Every Olympics is like this: A 17-day slog of long days, long lines, late nights, confusing bus schedules and, occasionally, stunning performances that seems like it'll go on forever.

Then the halfway point comes, your first load of laundry is successfully done, and you can see all the way to the other side.

Next thing you know, people are starting to wrap things up, as evidenced by the following telltale signs:

• Journalists begin scrambling around looking for anything a) not attached to the wall and b) bearing the Olympic rings, to take home for a cheap souvenir.

• Cardboard boxes and shipping containers suddenly rise in value on the Media Center black market where, until now, tickets to figure skating and "Happy Hippos" chocolate treats have been the preferred currency.

• You get the chance to hear the question, "Isn't there some way to put this 17-pound block of dark chocolate on my expense account?" asked and answered in 23 different languages.

We could go on, but we can't, because there's still several days of important Olympic news to shovel forth. To wit...

This week's best excuse

Canadian curlers have blamed food poisoning for a disheartening defeat against Japan. The Maple Leaf nation's top player, Christine Keshen, says she was done in by "rich pasta and cheesy pizza" from a team dinner last week.

Nixon herself gritted her teeth and curled on in spite of "crippling fatigue due to food poisoning" on the first day of the tournament.

Last week's best excuse

Keshen (see above) previously missed two ends of a curling match because she overslept.

Crowd fave

Sasha Cohen won over the largely Italian crowd in the women's figure-skating short program at the Palavela on Tuesday night. But their clear favorite up to that point was Silvia Fontana, who came out of retirement for one final skate for her country.

Alas, she fell on her first jump, struggled mightily through the rest of her skate and finished with tears in her eyes.

"I was nervous," she said. "There was a lot of pressure. I'm sorry to all of Italy."

Based on the warm response she received, we're pretty sure most of Italy has already forgiven her.

But isn't it sort of nice to see an athlete feel that sense of obligation?

Join Bode, cont.

Much speculation Wednesday morning about whether Bode Miller will race Saturday's slalom. Early word is that he suffered a sprained ankle Tuesday — playing basketball.

As usual, we're not making this up.

Seats filled

Games attendance, the Italians say, continues to "hotten up." Most surprising has been the strong attendance at Alpine and Nordic ski events. Alpine, in particular, has been drawing 6,000 to 8,000 paid customers this week.

That might not sound like much, but when you consider that getting to a ski race here is a full-day commitment involving bus transfers and other unpleasantries, it's a pretty strong endorsement by the locals.

Crowds in the city itself have been interesting: There's a strong sense of mixed nationality at hockey, but a huge American presence mixed with the Italian fans at pricey events such as figure skating.

Tickets to long-track speedskating, of course, were long ago snapped up by all those whacky Dutch fans, who pack the seats in orange clothing so bright it makes your head hurt.

In other words, they look like ice dancers, only bigger and louder.

This just in

Austrian Olympic officials, faced with incriminating doping evidence at their cross-country ski residence, including syringes and, we like to think, a blood-transfusion machine disguised as a dishwasher, have "softened their indignation" over surprise raids of athletes' quarters, news services are reporting.

More on this later, after we sharpen our torpor.

Checks, please

Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong, an Alpine skier from Ghana, is calling on "leading ski nations" to help develop skiers in snowless Africa.

Nkrumah-Acheampong, who says he narrowly missed qualifying for Alpine events here, believes the International Ski Federation's qualification criteria unfairly penalizes small nations with no snow.

He's right: It's an outrage.

International Olympic Committee officials have vowed to do something about it just as soon as they address the issue of Inuits lacking funds to develop beach volleyball players.

Ron Judd: 206-464-8280 or rjudd@seattletimes.com.