sp 221.txt

专家系统中的分类识别程序

SALT LAKE CITY, Feb. 20 - The wild and crazy sport of short-track speedskating took another strange skid tonight, but this time the controversial and contested result hoisted Apolo Anton Ohno to the gold medal, as opposed to the silver medal he had to win sliding across the finish line in the 1,000 meters Saturday night. 

Ohno, the 19-year-old from Seattle with the patch of hair on his chin and the bad-boy reputation coming into Salt Lake City, was awarded his first Olympic gold medal when the first skater to cross the finish line, Kim Dong Sung of South Korea, was disqualified for blocking Ohno's path as they entered the last turn of the 1,500 meters after 13 tight, strategically skated laps. 

Kim appeared to shift subtly as Ohno made his late charge after spending most of the race back in the bunched pack of six. Ohno pulled up his arms, as if to demonstrate that he had been impeded. After Kim crossed the line as the apparent winner, the fans at the Salt Lake Ice Center booed. The race officials soon made them happy, giving Ohno the close call. 

``I believe it's called cross-tracking,'' Ohno said after dropping to his knees and then hugging his father, Yuki, who raised him alone. ``I wanted to wait as long as possible. There was a lot of traffic. I came out of the corner with great acceleration, came on him real tight, got inside of him, and he just moved over on me, changed my track a little bit.'' 
(Vincent Laforet/NYT)
American speedskater Apolo Anton Ohno, back, finished second but won the 1,500-meter short track event when South Korea's Kim Dong Sung was disqualified. Slide Show: Wednesday's Events
Just enough to create one more uproar at an Olympics already roiled in protest. Kim was clearly stunned as he circled the ice carrying the South Korean flag. In a fit of pique not likely to make him a national hero, he slammed the flag down to the ice, picked it up and fired it down again. 

The head coach of the South Korean team, Jun Myung Kyu, made some angry allegations afterward and said that he would file a protest with the International Skating Union. 

Of Ohno's theatrics, he said, ``He was acting.'' About the referee, James Hewish, Jun said, ``I don't think that judge is up to the level of the Olympic event.'' 

Jun also said that Kim ``was not impeding any of the skaters'' and that ``Ohno was following him from behind and wasn't at a higher speed.'' He added, ``I told Kim he was champion because he finished the race before Ohno.'' 

Finally, Jun complained that Ohno and other Americans were being favored here under news media pressure. He said Ohno did not deserve to be portrayed as a victim of overly aggressive Asians, as he was by the American news media after the 1,000 meters. Jun refused to speak with American reporters. 

Race officials released a definition of cross-tracking: any move to ``improperly cross the course of, or in any way interfere with another competitor.'' 

Hewish, who signed off on the decision, is an Australian. It was another Australian, Steven Bradbury, who was the beneficiary of Ohno's misfortune in the 1,000 meters, the last man standing at the finish after Ohno, the leader in the final turn, and the other skaters fell. 

Ohno's winning time tonight was 2 minutes 18.541 seconds. Li Jiajun of China won the silver medal, and the bronze went to Canada's Marc Gagnon, the reigning world champion at 1,500 meters, which was being run at the Olympics for the first time. 

For Ohno, the wait for the gold probably seemed endless, though it was just four days longer than he initially planned. Americans have been winning medals all over this Wasatch Valley, and, more recently, the gold has been adding up, too. 

Ohno was promoted as a potential four-gold American coming into the Games, but that was a reach, given the quality of skaters like Kim and Gagnon, as well as the Nascar nature of this sport. 

There were no ill effects, Ohno said, from the six stitches that closed the one-inch gashed he got in the 1,000 meters. This time, Ohno said, he was determined to avoid congestion, as much as can be expected in this roller derby on ice. 

It was Bradbury who lost his balance in his quarterfinal heat, as the skaters rounded the last turn. Down he went, skidding to the finish and holding third, finding good fortune from a new position and perspective. 

His luck ran out in the semifinals. In the same heat, Ohno bided his time but qualified, finishing second with a late burst of inside speed. Rusty Smith, who will be his teammate Saturday night in the 3,000-meter relay, did not survive the semifinals, finishing third behind Kim and a late-rushing Bruno Loscos of France. 

Smith later reported a bad head cold that affected his breathing. ``I was impressed that I got out of bed this morning,'' he said. ``Hopefully, I'll get rid of it before Saturday.'' 

That is when Ohno will have his chance for two more gold medals, in the 500 meters and in the relay. Whatever the outcomes - and who is the visionary who would predict them? - Ohno said he had what he came for. 

``I come here, perform my best and get a gold medal,'' he said. ``I'm good now. They can just go throw me in the desert and bury me.'' 
A Family's 3rd Olympian Wins Gold
ARK CITY, Utah, Feb. 20 - He plunged face-first down the icy chute with a laminated photograph of his grandfather inside his white helmet, a bittersweet reminder of the legacy he was racing for.

The skeleton slider Jim Shea Jr. was the first third-generation Winter Olympian. His grandfather Jack Shea won two gold medals in speed skating at the 1932 Winter Games in Lake Placid, N.Y., and had planned to attend the 19th Winter Games. But on Jan. 22, Jack Shea died at 91 after his car was struck by a van on a snowy road near Lake Placid. The other driver was accused of driving while intoxicated.

Jim Shea Jr. raced today at just under 80 miles an hour on his rattling fiberglass sled, fighting for every hundredth of a second in memory of his grandfather.

After twisting around 15 narrow curves, after navigating for 51.07 seconds through a whirling snowstorm, Shea shot past the finish line, barreling through the throng of screaming fans with their American flags. He stood up and yelled in disbelief at his total time of 1 minute 41.96 seconds over two heats, enough to earn him the gold medal in a daredevil sport that had not appeared in the Winter Games since 1948.

Shea's underdog victory, by just five-hundredths of a second over Martin Rettl of Austria, the defending world champion, was the first of three medals for American skeleton racers today.
Vincent Laforet/The New York Times
After winning the skeleton race, Jim Shea Jr. held up a photograph of his grandfather, who died last month.
Vincent Laforet/The New York Times
Tristan Gale finishing her second skeleton run yesterday as fans applaud. It was the first Olympic appearance for women's skeleton.
In the women's competition, Tristan Gale won the gold medal in 1:45.11 and Lea Ann Parsley won the silver. They scrambled off their sleds to chants of "U.S.A." even as their European opponents - several of whom were considered more likely to win - came over to hug them.

The world of skeleton racing is a close-knit one. Shea was warmly embraced by the men he had just beaten. Rettl's mother cooks for Shea when he races in Innsbruck.

After Shea's victory, he ripped off his helmet and took out the photograph of his grandfather, one of many funeral cards his family had made. There was the former champion speedskater, his grin as wide as his grandson's.

"I definitely felt him here today, and I definitely felt him at the opening ceremony," Shea, 33, said. "I think he had some unfinished business before he went up to heaven, and now I think he can go."

Shea's victory came despite a debilitating circulation problem in his left leg that limited his walking and kept him from warming up properly, although he did do some short sprints before today's race.

Shea and Parsley have been two of the most visible symbols of American fervor during the Olympics.

Parsley, a firefighter from Ohio, was one of eight athletes who presented the tattered World Trade Center flag to President Bush during the opening ceremony on Feb. 8.

Shea took the Olympic oath on behalf of the athletes, as his grandfather had done 70 years earlier. Later that evening, Shea and his father, Jim Sr., a skier who competed in Nordic combined and cross-country in the 1964 Winter Games, were handed the Olympic torch in a ceremony that was to have included Jack Shea.

After winning the event today, Shea climbed up a fence to high-five his friends after his mother put a black fedora on his head. Then Jim Sr. grabbed his son in a bear hug, his eyes brimming with tears.

"You bet there will be celebrations tonight," the father yelled to a friend through his cellphone. Then, turning to the crowd, he said, "This is the greatest day of my life, of my family's life."

The Sheas became the second family in Winter Olympic history to have two gold-medal winners. Bill Christian won gold with the American hockey team in 1960, and his son Dave was a member of the "Miracle on Ice" team that won in 1980.

In the women's skeleton, Alex Coomber of Britain won the bronze. She was watching the scoreboard right after her run, knowing that she could be knocked down in the standings by Parsley and Gale, the two final sliders of the day.

"It's such a big deal, I'm not sure I'm ready to handle it yet," Gale, a 21-year-old from New Mexico with red-and-blue highlights in her hair and glitter on her face, said of her gold medal.

Parsley, 33, was just as excited. "I don't care what color it is," she said of her silver medal. "After watching Jimmy win his gold, it just felt good to see our program have such a great day."

Many of the sliders said they were concerned when they woke up this morning and saw snow falling. The weather slowed everyone on the 4,380-foot track, and workers had to keep clearing the ice. But almost all the sliders reached speeds of nearly 80 miles an hour, grappling with forces so powerful that they prevented the racers from lifting their chins more than an inch off the ground.

Skeleton was invented in the 1880's in St. Moritz, Switzerland, by British Army officers vacationing there. They built a track called the Cresta Run that connected St. Moritz with a nearby village, where a bottle of champagne was given to the winner. That same track was used the two previous times that skeleton appeared in the Olympics, in 1928 and 1948. But Olympic officials discontinued it as too dangerous.

In the 1970's, skeleton became popular again with a small group of Europeans who traveled to artificial tracks in Germany and Austria to practice and race.

Skeleton's most dedicated followers lobbied to get it back into the Olympics. Mitt Romney, chairman of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee, said skeleton was included this year partly to enhance television advertising revenue.

Skeleton sliders are wedded to the sensation of risk. Gale has likened the sport to "tying yourself to an airplane wing." She switched from ski racing to skeleton about four years ago and began competing at World Cup events only this season.

"Normal people can do this sport," she said. "I love this sport. It was fun when we started and it's still fun now."

Parsley is a registered nurse as well as a firefighter, and has said she would like to be a smoke-jumper.

After Shea's family moved to Lake Placid in 1988, he became interested in bobsledding, though his mother warned him against it. He soon switched to skeleton. To compete in World Cup events, he hitchhiked around Europe with a broken sled, sleeping in bobsled sheds and surviving on his credit card.

He won the world championship in 1999, placed second in 1997 and third in 2000. He was ranked third over all in World Cup standings in the 2000-1 season.

"It's taken me a long time to get here," he said. "I've been around for a while. I've gone through some real tough times. My family has gone through some real tough times as of late. It's very emotional for me."