Jim Scherr Salt Quotations

I think we're going to again surprise the world with how the U.S. does. They view our performance in Salt Lake as an aberration. I think our athletes and our national governing bodies, both individually and collectively, are out to prove that their performance wasn't an aberration that we are collectively a winter sports power in the world.

We think there's an opportunity for a performance that could come close to or match what the athletes achieved in Salt Lake City. We hope they'll be able to achieve at that level. We'll tell you after the games how we did.

We had 34 podium finishes in Salt Lake City and 75 top-eight finishes. We expect this team to do very well. We're not going to predict how many medals we might win in these games.

Prior to Salt Lake, we were an afterthought as a winter sport nation. We had won a few medals, the highest being 13. But we really weren't considered one of the powers in the Winter Olympic Games.

In Salt Lake City we were on our home soil, very friendly environment, same time zone, home-cooked meals, competing in front of friends and family. We expect a more difficult time here, but we clearly have a great group of athletes.

In Salt Lake City, we had a wonderful opportunity to participate on our home soil. We had a home crowd and a friendly environment. We were in the same time zone or similar time zone to where the athletes trained. You're eating home-cooked meals with friends and family. And I think familiarity with the venues helped as well.

Clearly, we didn't achieve to the level of our expectations coming to the Games, which were very high coming out of Salt Lake and were high because of the quality efforts of the athletes throughout this four-year period.