Olympics: The Memory Count

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Alpine Skier Thomai Lefousi, the only woman on the Greek team, if 16 can be called a woman, brought the flag. Her memory of an Olympics in which she slipped as much as she skied will be of friendly Turks and girlish conspiracies over ice cream. A Rumanian counterpart has pledged to be her pen pal, but their common language was mostly hand signals, and how will they send them in the mail? "Some English maybe," Thomai said. "My sister will help." She thought, "It's been very beautiful here. I have two little bears to take home." And what, in the cosmic world, has she found to be the difference between North America and home? She mulled it over for a moment before answering, "Nine hours."