He won't be on medal stand, but flame burns here

The old Greeks who invented the Olympics would have railed against today's bribes, snowboards, and billion-dollar economic packages. They might have been marginal on Salt Lake City and not very hot on skeleton drivers and curlers flailing their broomsticks.

But they would have loved Johnny Bauer.

Bauer is an American cross-country skier, an Olympian for the third and last time. On Friday night he will parade with Team USA in the opening ceremonies of the Winter Games in Salt Lake City in front of hundreds of millions of people around the world watching on television. You shouldn't expect the cameras to zoom in on John when they have more celebrated targets like Bode Miller and Michelle Kwan and Apolo Anton Ohno not far away.

John is an Olympic obscurity, a 5-foot-8 little guy with blue eyes, a compact frame, and waning dreams. He will be grinning and proud and waving his arm and crying inside because this day will be the summit of his life in athletics.

John Bauer is not going to win in the Olympics. American cross-country skiers long ago learned the virtues of a manageable humility, because they don't have more than a prayer to beat those big-striding Norwegians and their rivals.

So why would the early Olympians have called John Bauer a compatriot? And why would a genuine Olympic hero, Mike Ramsey of the American "Miracle on Ice" in 1980, understand? They would for the same reason that the John Bauers of these games deserve the roars and the hurrahs - just once - from those huge crowds who know the more famous faces better because they'll see them on the pedestals.

The Olympic multitudes know the John Bauer quality when they see it, the mark he will bring to his races - wherever he finishes. Despite all of the

grotesque money that saturates these Olympics, you can still find an amateurish zeal that makes something noble out of raw, uncompromising effort. The ballplayers in America have a couple of marvelous expressions for it. They will say, "this guy brings it," or "he sells out [his body] on every play." It characterizes the athlete who gives every game, every race, every play the full commitment of will and strength he or she can deliver.

You will see it when Miller charges down the slopes, fearless and impetuous, propelled by a primitive fury to extract every ounce of competitive fire within him. It's why the Olympics trigger enormous TV audiences. There's also the goad of nationalism, of course, and the American audiences will pour it out in every venue. You know it will be global. If you've heard jokes about the passivity of Norwegians, spend some time in front of a TV set in Stavanger when the Norse skiers come on. It's like New Orleans before Lent.

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