SOCHI SCENE: Bigger than life
KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia (AP) Kate Hansen is not lacking for Olympic personality.
She's one of the younger sliders on the World Cup luge circuit, yet can talk just about anyone into anything. One of her claims to fame is making videos of athletes, including a holiday-themed one this season where she and fellow U.S. luger Erin Hamlin got athletes, coaches and even media from plenty of nations to take part and lip sync Mariah Carey's ''All I Want For Christmas.''
So that's earned her a certain amount of acclaim among sliders.
Back at home in Southern California, they're taking notice as well. Turns out Hansen - from La Canada, Calif., a student at Brigham Young and America's first winner of a World Cup singles race this season since 1997 - is on a billboard wishing her luck at the Sochi Games.
''Apparently, the Olympics are a pretty big deal because someone put up a billboard of me,'' Hansen says. ''And I've never been on a billboard. That doesn't happen.''
Clearly, it does. And to use one of her go-to words, she's pretty stoked about it.
- Tim Reynolds - Twitter: http://twitter.com/ByTimReynolds
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Associated Press reporters will be filing dispatches about happenings in and around Sochi during the 2014 Winter Games. Follow AP journalists covering the Olympics on Twitter: http://apne.ws/1c3WMiu
