Nardiello was charged with sexual harassment and it divided the team into camps. He was eventually cleared, but removed from the job Feb. 3 for insubordination when he flew to Europe to coach the team without approval.

To make matters worse, the men’s team was devastated when medal favorite Zach Lund tested positive for the banned substance finasteride and was ruled out of the Games on the eve of the opening ceremony.

“Our sport’s not very well known,” said Parsley, who’s serving as an assistant on the U.S. team. “We’re always happy to get publicity — we want people to see our sport — but we want it to be positive publicity.

“Hopefully,” she added, “the performances that these kids are putting out on the track will be the positive side of it.”

As if that wasn’t pressure enough, Jim Shea, the U.S. men’s gold medalist in 2002, popped up at the start gate just before Uhlaender’s second run. And then, she was still trying to figure out what her dad meant by a bit of advice he dropped on her hours earlier.

Ted Uhlaender was already a veteran by the time he made it to the World Series. But what he tried to convey to Katie was all the experience in the world hadn’t prepared him for his first step onto the biggest stage.

“He just told me,” she recalled afterward, “to not worry about messing up and relax. Man, I’ll tell you, he was right when he said that first at-bat is really hard to deal with.”

Uhlaender started fast, but hit that moment in turn 6 when she realized she was still doing everything too fast to find the quiet slipstream that would get her down to the bottom fast enough to reach the medal platform.

Better preparation, more consistent coaching, a lot more experience — any or all of those things might have made a difference. No one understood that better than Uhlaender as she stood at the bottom of the course and looked back toward the track, wondering what might have been.

But if there was anything to be learned from all the trouble behind her, it was this:

“The definition of being an Olympian is pushing yourself to your potential,” she said. “It’s all about your mentality and how you handle those situations. That’s how you win in this sport. When a bad situation comes up or you make a mistake, you have to handle it smoothly.

“Considering how I got here,” Uhlaender added, finally cracking a smile, “I did the best I could.”

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