luge competition as the Winter Olympics slid into high gear yesterday.

That was the good news.

The bad news was that Payne finished 31st out of the 33 racers during the first day of singles competition. The final two runs take place today.

But Payne did manage to record a few triumphs of his own.

His time of 52.606 seconds during the first of two runs on the three-quarters-of-a-mile Hunderfossen track outside of Lillehammer, was a personal best.

And to top off that off, Payne hurtled down the dangerous track at 120 kilometres per hour, the fastest speed he has ever raced.

During his second run, Payne -- the lone Bermudian competing in Norway -- turned in a time of 53.126 seconds, for an aggregate of one minute, 45.461.

"The conditions were fantastic,'' said an upbeat Payne yesterday from his room at the Olympic Village. "This is probably one of the smoothest tracks I've ever run on.'' A day earlier, Bermuda marched into the Games as athletes from the 66 participating countries were welcomed during the low-key opening ceremonies.

Bermuda's flag was once again carried by chef de mission John Hoskins, who was followed in the march by Payne.

"It was great to be part of history,'' said Payne. "The ceremonies were spectacular, but it was cold.

"On our seats were plastic covers, but I took the plastic off to put it over my shoes since my feet were so cold.'' With temperatures hovering near minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit, Payne was at least kept warm by the long blue dress coat he was wearing, which was designed by his wife Maria, who is also also attending the Games.

The overall leader is Germany's Georg Hackl, who took a lead of one hundredth-of-a-second over Austrian Markus Prock. The singles competition concludes today and Payne will return to Bermuda on Wednesday.

A number of angry TV viewers phoned The Royal Gazette yesterday complaining about the blacking out of cable coverage of the Olympics. The Olympics can be viewed on both ZBM and Canadian cable channel 18 (BCTV). And while locals had the good fortune of seeing Payne march in the Opening Ceremonies on Cablevision channel 18 on Saturday the programme was blacked at 5.20 p.m. and replaced with the ZBM programming (college basketball). Callers to Cablevision were told that ZBM had exclusive rights to the Winter Olympics. A spokesperson for ZBM was unavailable for comment yesterday.

Simon Payne