GOLD AND GLAD FIRST THIRD-GENERATION OLYMPIAN SLIDES TO VICTORY FOR DAD, GRANDPA.

Byline: STEVE DILBECK

PARK CITY, Utah - It was the perfect Olympic moment, a great American story.

Utter joy flowed, enveloped, pulled you in. Dared you to be cynical, to not be moved.

Jim Shea Jr., America's first third-generation Olympian, didn't so much bask in his moment as wring every possible emotion from it. A man who would not let go, who wanted to share it with every person he could touch.

On the final run of Wednesday's skeleton - the daring headfirst sled ride of more than 80 mph - at the Salt Lake City Winter Games, Shea found gold, found history, and maybe, found a little peace.

As he rose from his sled and his winning time flashed overhead, the competing sliders he had defeated rushed to embrace him. Ireland's Clifton Wrottesley, knocked off the podium by Shea, was the first, quickly followed by Austria's silver winner, Martin Rettl, and Switzerland's bronze winner, Gregor Staehli.

Cow bells rang, American flags waved, an entire mountain seemed to dance. Shea stopped and bent over, slowly taking a picture from inside his American eagle-painted helmet as snow gently fell all around.

Then he lifted the photo of his grandfather, Jack Shea, the gold-medal winner in speedskating at the 1932 Olympic Games who passed away less than a month ago, to the heavens, to the cameras, for any and all to see.

``I definitely felt his spirit today,'' Shea said. ``I felt him at the opening ceremonies. He's around. He has a lot of friends here. I think he had some unfinished business before he went to heaven, and now he can go.''

He found his mother and hugged her. He found his father, an Olympic nordic skier at the '64 Winter Games, and hugged him. He jumped over the sled course and into the crowd and hugged friends, coaches, fans, sponsors, strangers. I am pretty certain I am the only person in Utah he did not hug.

Shea couldn't stop whooping, throwing fists, raising his helmet, leaping, embracing any and all. He was the happiest man on Earth, the guy from the small town, Lake Placid, N.Y., who hitchhiked broke around Europe to continue on the winter tour and truly learn his craft, to gain the respect of his European competitors.

And now he stood above them all, thankfully unable to contain his ecstasy.

``It is the best,'' said Anita DeFrantz, the former U.S. Olympian and International Olympic Committee member. ``I think he was doing it for himself, because his father and grandfather taught him; it was his moment.''

It is Shea who was chosen by his fellow U.S. Olympians to give the Olympic oath at the opening ceremony. Shea and his father were part of the final torch bearers inside Rice-Eccles Olympic Stadium before the Olympic caldron was lit.

The 33-year-old Shea, in a Winter Olympics that has often been dominated in the United States by the young athletes of the extreme sports, lends a mature voice to the Olympics.

``It was a very emotional, very personal time for me,'' Shea said. ``But I can honestly say now that I've won the gold medal, that it's not the gold medal that is really important - the important part is just taking part and the friendships I have.''

That's the Olympic legacy his grandfather passed down, the spirit of bringing the world together in peaceful games that was more than just rhetoric, but had become a family tradition.

In the back of a press conference after the flower ceremony - after which Shea again jumped into the crowd - his father stood quietly, not boasting, but beaming nonetheless.

``If Jimmy had finished last today, I would have been just as proud of him as I am right now,'' Shea Sr. said.

``My dad preached the true Olympic gospel of taking part in friendly competition for the honor and glory of sport. He ingrained it into Jimmy's mind. Jimmy's done that and become such an excellent spokesman for sport.''

When Shea won the Skeleton World Championship in 1999, his international friends urged him to push the United States to return skeleton to the Olympics at Salt Lake City. Skeleton had last been part of the Winter Games in 1948.

``There was a lot of pressure on me to try and get it into the Olympics by a lot of Europeans,'' Shea said. ``I knocked on every outhouse, doghouse and henhouse. I even went to the White House twice.''

The sport returned, and so did Shea, who was ranked only third in the world coming into the Olympics and fighting a circulation problem in his right big toe that has left it yellow, calloused and needing surgery.

Yet nothing was going to hold back Shea on Wednesday. Not the friendly competitors he calls family, not the constant snowfall, not his personal grief, and certainly, not a bad toe.

Shea was at the pinnacle of his sporting life, but in a press conference encouraging the media to ask questions of Rettl and Staehli, when someone wondered what he'd most like to be remembered for, he said it wasn't his winning ways.

``I think that I'd like to be known more for my friendships than my athletic accomplishments,'' he said.

And with that, he found his mother and father and fellow medal winners, and walked off. An Olympic moment lingering, an Olympic moment to remember.

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) American Jim Shea Jr., right, celebrates with his dad after winning in the men's skeleton. Tristan Gale of the U.S. won gold in the women's skeleton final. See SPORTS.

Charlie Booker/Associated Press

(2) Jim Shea Jr. of the United States celebrates his final and gold medal- winning run during the men's skeleton at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics in Park City, Utah, on Wednesday.

David J. Phillip/Associated Press

(3) Victorious Jim Shea Jr. holds the funeral card of his grandfather, the gold medal winner in 1932 in men's speedskating.

John Kuntz/Cleveland Plain Dealer