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PARK CITY, Utah - As the Polish Batman bent his legs for the biggest run of his life, Anna Jedryka felt her muscles tighten.

"I'm shaking," she said.

Ski jumping, always the most breathtaking event at the Winter Games, couldn't have played out in a more spectacular setting Sunday, 6,400 feet above sea level in the snow-white Wasatch Mountain Range.

Brilliant sunshine. Blue sky. Light wind.

The stands filled quickly with 18,999 fans representing more than 20 countries, waving their colorful flags and ringing their cowbells.

It felt like a rock concert, and it seemed as if half of Poland - including former president Lech Walesa - was here to see if Adam Malysz could give the country its first winter medal in 30 years.

Malysz (pronounced Mal-ish) is Poland's answer to Michael Jordan. Actually, you'd have to cross Jordan with Bruce Springsteen and Oprah Winfrey to really get an idea of how big Malysz is. His popularity is such that 30,000 Poles traveled to the Czech Republic last year to watch him compete in the World Cup.

"He's bigger than the president right now," said Poland native Kris Ksiag. "Only the Pope is more popular in Poland."

Malysz, 24, seems a little bewildered by it all. Only four years ago he considered quitting his sport to take up roofing. Now, as the reigning world champion, he can't go out to eat in Warsaw without somebody asking him in mid-sausage if he can sign their poster.

"It is a pleasure," he said, "but also a problem."

Ksiag and Jedryka had their own cheering section yesterday. It was composed of a group of Poles who had recently emigrated to Chicago. They came sporting furry top hats and their country's red and white colors painted on their faces.

They love Malysz not just because he is successful but because he is one of them. He grew up on a farm and runs an electronics store with his wife, Izabela.

"He's just like all of the Polish people," Jedryka said. "He's not very much higher. He is very the same."

Next to the United State, Poland was easily the best-represented country here yesterday. Some fans, such as Brian Gionda, obtained a tourist visa to make the 5,000-mile trek from Warsaw. The rest of Poland was home watching on television as night fell on their country.

Many Poles have little reason to cheer these days. Gionda said that unemployment is up to around 18 percent as the country continues a rebuilding process that started 13 years ago, when it extricated itself from decades of Soviet Communist rule.

Jedryka is young enough to have been force-fed Russian in elementary school. She got to learn in English in high school, though, because that was about the time Walesa was leading Poland's move toward democracy.

Walesa, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983, submitted to a brief interview during yesterday's competition.

"We've got a lot of problems, so we need success," he said. "Malysz is our ¯success."

Talk about pressure. It's a wonder Malysz didn't go the way of Vinko Bogataj, the poor Yugoslavian who biffed at the bottom of a ski jump and later became the video accompaniment to the "agony of defeat" line on Wide World of Sports.

Instead, Malysz stepped calmly into the starting gate for the first of his two jumps. With Jedryka and maybe a thousand other Poles shaking in their boots, he sped down the ramp at about 60 miles per hour and took off like a Cessna, all 5-feet-7, 117 pounds of him. He rose toward the mountains with his skis shaped in a perfect V.

The jump measured 98.5 meters, about the length of a football field and the longest of the day to that point. Jedryka and her friends roared, but their cheers died quickly.

Malysz's left ski caught a divot - created when an earlier skier wiped out - and he nearly fell upon landing. Judges award points based equally on the length of a jump and the artistry, which includes the landing.

Malysz lost major points. Before he took his second jump, he knew the gold medal was gone. Switzerland's Simon Ammann won it. Germany's Sven Hannawald took silver. Malysz will get another chance Wednesday in the 120-meter jump.

That's life in the Olympics. Four years of work gets a minute to shine. Malysz - whom they call the Polish Batman - wasn't bitter. He chose to focus on the fact that he was Poland's first medal winner since Wojciech Fortuna won the ski jump competition 30 years ago in Sapporo, Japan.

Fortuna was there yesterday. He'll be there Wednesday, too, along with the rest of the Eastern bloc. They were disappointed yesterday but hardly crushed.

"We got a medal, and that's the most important thing," Jedryka said. "We're still happy."

Joe Starkey is a sports writer for the Tribune-Review.

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