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The day of the 500-m race broke gray and rainy once again, making the oval slow and sloppy. When Jansen hit the first curve, spectators who remembered the disaster in Calgary held their breath. In a flash he was through safely, drove down the backstretch into the far curve and finished in 37.46. But he knew immediately that the time probably wouldn't be good enough. It was not. In the next race Japan's Junichi Inoue hit the finish line in 37.26. And then Jansen's longtime rival and closest friend among the competitors, Uwe-Jens Mey, topped Inoue with a time of 37.14, capturing the gold for Germany and repeating his victory at Calgary. Said Mey after the race: "Maybe his nerves didn't hold out as much as he imagined. The Olympics don't obey normal rules." Later Japan's Toshiyuki Kuroiwa came within .04 sec. of stealing Mey's medal, and that pushed Jansen to fourth. The American has another chance for a medal in the 1,000-m race. "I'll be O.K.," he said. But unless he finds a place on the victory stand this week, Jansen will not be among those who reaped their second chance at Albertville.