When the 20th Winter Olympic Games open in Turin, Italy, on Friday, Feb. 10, the Cornell community will be rooting for three of its own: undergraduates Jamie Silverstein and Travis Mayer and law-student-to-be Matt Savoie.

Ice dancer Silverstein, 22, won the 1999 World Junior Championship when she was 15 but then quit skating to combat an eating disorder. She enrolled at Cornell a few years later in the College of Arts and Sciences and became a College Scholar (designing her own major), but as a sophomore in December 2004, she finally hauled out the figure skates that had been rusting in the trunk of her car. And she was hooked again. Within weeks, she was on leave from Cornell to start training again.

A native of Mount Lebanon, Pa., who now lives near Detroit, Silverstein will be ice dancing with Ryan O'Meara, 22, as one of three ice-dancing pairs on the U.S. team.

When freestyle skier Mayer, 23, of Colorado Springs, Colo., was a freshman in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, he took a leave to compete in the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Games and reaped a silver medal. A Cornell junior majoring in applied economics and management, Mayer took second place at the World Cup in Oberstdorf, Germany, in December. Now he is on leave again to tackle the moguls in Turin with the U.S. ski team. His Web site, http://www.travismayer.com, reports that he has been able to maintain a 3.95 GPA at Cornell by enrolling in summer classes and correspondence courses.

Figure skater Savoie, 25, of Peoria, Ill., earned his undergraduate degree at Bradley University in Peoria, with a major in political science and minor in biology and a master's degree in urban planning at the University of Illinois-Champaign, where he trained while attending school. Although he has been accepted by Cornell Law School, he has deferred matriculation until this coming fall so he could train full time for the Olympics. Savoie missed the 2002 Olympics by one spot after placing fourth at the 2002 U.S. Nationals. This time he is Turin-bound after placing third at the U.S. Nationals.

Another Cornellian also will be at Turin, but in a coaching role for a Canadian team. Melody Davidson, the seventh head coach in Cornell women's hockey history, is the head coach of the Canadian women's hockey team for the 2006 Winter Games. She was an assistant coach for the 2002 Olympic gold medal-winning Canadian women's hockey team.