Soggy and snowed under, the Olympics still produce tales of redemption, heartbreak and, of course, stirring triumphs

By PICO IYER /NAGANO

uddenly, after days of swamping snow, the morning of Japan's Fourth of July--its national holiday, commemorating the nation's founding 2,658 years ago--dawned birthday blue. Tae Satoya, a 21-year-old from Sapporo who had never won a major competition and had finished only 11th in the first of her two runs, bumped and jangled over the women's moguls course. Then she just stood there and, with an air of excited surprise, watched champion after champion fail to beat her score. Just seven months before, soon after the world championship, her father had died, and now, as her American rival Liz McIntyre said, "she wanted to have redemption." The first female Winter gold medalist in 2,658 years of Japanese history dissolved into tears.

That same day--such is the cunning magic that sometimes hides out in the Olympics--America had its turn. Picabo Street, the supercharged performance artist from the Idaho hamlet of Triumph, streaked through the super-G course in 1:18:02. A few months ago, Street too was a spectator, having torn a ligament in her knee;

In only her fourth race back, 11 days before, she had knocked herself out while whizzing through a course at 75 m.p.h. Now, like Satoya, she stood at the bottom of the course and, unlike Satoya, delivered an irrepressible commentary as one, two, three and the rest of the 43 skiers came down, some within a whisper of her. Only the woman in the shocking orange tiger helmet, with the diamond stud glinting in her right ear, would say, "I knew it was only a matter of time before the spirits would come through." She won the race by one-hundredth of a second.