Columnist Ron Kantowski: Las Vegas man warms to being an Olympic dad

Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2002 | 10:59 a.m.

Ron Kantowski's insider notes column appears Tuesday and his Page One column appears Thursday. He can be reached at ron@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4088.

Quite frankly, Minnesota native Jeff Koznick has seen enough snow to last a lifetime, which mostly explains why he moved to Las Vegas three years ago.

His daughter, on the other hand, is another story.

Like a Saint Bernard during avalanche season, 26-year-old Kristina Koznick thrives in the snow. The four-time U.S. national slalom champion and five-time winner on the prestigious World Cup circuit will be one of the medal favorites in Wednesday's slalom at the Winter Olympics, when the world's top female alpine skiers converge on Snowbasin near Salt Lake City.

That will be one day, proud father Jeff Koznick said, that he won't mind the cold weather.

"That's for sure," said Koznick, a commercial real estate developer who moved to Lake Las Vegas following a golf outing in 1999. "I follow my daughter all around Europe (on the World Cup circuit). But the Olympics are different. I can't sleep now, big-time."

This is actually Kristina Koznick's third shot at Olympic gold. Torn knee ligaments precluded her from competing in the 1994 Games in Lillehammer and following an apprehensive first run at Nagano four years later, she skied off course in the second.

The very next weekend, she won a World Cup event. But the World Cup isn't the Olympics, a fact of which her father is nervously aware.

Jeff Koznick said the irony of the Games is that skiers train a lifetime for a run that lasts less than two minutes.

"There are roughly 52 to 58 gates in a run and she's got to make 114 perfect turns in about 110 seconds," he said.

"You make one small bobble, and it's hard to pick it up."

But somehow, his daughter has managed, despite breaking away from the government subsidized U.S. ski team in 2000. She now trains on her own with a small staff of experts (including her coach and boyfriend Dan Stripp) and operates her own website (www.koznick.com) to help support her skiing endeavors.

The elder Koznick said the Lake Las Vegas community also has supplemented Kristina's Olympic dream by providing lodging during her training at Deer Valley in Idaho and again at Park City for the Olympics.

"This community has really been supportive," Koznick said before departing for Salt Lake City on Sunday. "There's going to be a caravan (from Lake Las Vegas to Salt Lake City)."

Kevin Harvick, Gordon and Busch were running 2-3-4 late in the race when the first two collided, triggering one of the worst wrecks since Leon Spinks had his driver's license revoked.

Just afterward, the NBC broadcast picked up on a radio transmission between Gordon and his crew, during which Gordon said he was racing "the wild man in the damn 97 car (Busch)" when he and Harvick got together.

The television replays showed Busch was nowhere near Gordon's car at the time of the accident. Busch's car was up on the track in the high groove while Harvick and Gordon dueled near the track apron.

And finally, I had to chuckle upon reading that Las Vegas High wrestling coach Joe LaRocco was ejected from his own gym during the state wrestling meet when two of his wrestlers failed to tie/tape up their shoelaces.

All I know is that the Harlem Globetrotters would never have made it on the wrestling mat. When Meadlowlark Lemon used to tell the Washington Generals their shoes were untied, it usually resulted in a lay-up, not an early shower.