TEXTING FROM TURIN.

Byline: - Steve Dilbeck

As I crawled into my hotel in Claviere - which I believe is French for ``the last outpost'' - around 1 a.m., it began to snow. Beautiful, light snow. When I awoke, it was still snowing. Maybe a foot or more of delicate snow covered the entire village. It felt almost like a fairy tale.

A Winter Games that almost had been devoid of winter, save for the freezing temperatures, suddenly looked right. Trees and hills and cars were dusted with white.

These are the Italian Alps after all, and they were in dire need of some real snow. The sides of the mountains that face the sun all day were almost barren of white. Much of the ski runs are covered by man-made snow.

It's a monster pain to commute to events on the mountain. Even staying here, almost every event takes three bus rides to get there.

But we have one major advantage up here over the media and fans staying in industrial, dull Turin. It looks like the Olympics up here, as opposed to an oversized steel mill. It feels like the Olympics.

And after a little snow, more than ever.

CAPTION(S):

photo, box

Photo:

(color) - Casey FitzRandolph, U.S. speedskater, on today's men's 1,000- meter race, which features a field that includes Americans Shani Davis, Joe Check and Chad Hedrick and Dutch star Jan Bos.

Box:

THEY SAID IT