Talk of Vancouver: Plenty of backbone in US women's skeleton USA Today
Women's teammate Katie Uhlaender has come back from a shattered kneecap, the result of a snowmobile accident, and the death of her father, former major league baseball player Ted Uhlaender, in the past 12-plus months.
Men's slider Zach Lund was stung four years ago by a controversial doping ban that kept him out of the Olympics. He tested positive for finasteride, a hair restoration drug that can mask steroids. Eric Bernotas once struggled with Tourette's syndrome and, while in college at West Virginia, battled alcoholism and was treated for depression.
"We've all really helped each other in a way," Lund says. "We've come together more as a team because of the adversity we've faced."
Olympic oasis : In the heart of Vancouver's skid row — a world apart from the glittering residential towers on the city's signature waterfront — James Oickle has created an "oasis from this hell on earth" that is equal parts parody and celebration of the Winter Olympic Games .
Oickle, 53, has taken a muddy vacant lot, which in summer serves as a community vegetable garden, and transformed it into a colorful retreat from the blocks of battered storefronts and the gray streetscape teeming with drug addicts and the homeless.
The centerpiece of the lot is a quite different version of the iconic Olympic symbol of five inter-connected rings representing the world's five continents: In Oickle's garden, the rings are hearts.
