COLD FEET?

By HELENE ELLIOTT

Feb. 8, 1998 12 AM PT

Kenyan cross-country skier Philip Boit, who will race in the men’s 10-kilometer race next week, is involved in an experiment to see whether Kenyan athletes can transfer their renowned running skills to skiing.

“Back home, people only know about cross-country running,” he said. “They’ve never heard of cross-country skiing. Often they’ve never heard about snow either and they’ve no idea what it is to be cold.”

BIO BYTES

The Olympic computer system contains biographies on every athlete, including his or her sport, position, place of birth and tidbits of personal information.

French hockey player Philippe Bozon, for example, is known as “the French Wayne Gretzky.” And then there’s Albert Grimaldi, a pilot on Monaco’s four-man bobsled team. His hobbies are tennis, running, water sports, skiing, sailing, football and collecting pins. He has had tendinitis in his right knee and shoulder and torn his right calf muscle.

His occupation? Heir to the throne of Manaco. And also known as Prince Albert, son of the late Grace Kelly.

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Helene Elliott

Helene Elliott was with the Los Angeles Times’ Sports department from 1989 to 2024, first as a staff writer and then, starting in 2006, as a columnist. She became the first female journalist to be honored with a plaque in the Hall of Fame of a major professional sport as the 2005 winner of the Hockey Hall of Fame’s Elmer Ferguson Award, awarded to writers “who have brought honor to journalism and to hockey.” A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., and graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, she has covered 18 Olympics.

COLD FEET?

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