LAKE PLACID, N.Y. — The first day of competition in the ESPN Great Outdoor Games looked like déjà vu after the first three events.

Boom runners Mandy Erdmann and J.R. Salzman repeated their gold-medal performances of a year ago, and in the Springboard Chop, Mitch Hewitt won his second gold in consecutive years.

The similarities stopped, however, when it came to the retriever trials. In that event, 2000 gold medal winner, Skeet, and silver medalist, Dish, finished in the same order. But in the overall standings in the 12-retriever field, the two dogs finished next to last and last, respectively.

More on Super Sue

The winner of the Retriever Trial was expected to put to rest an age-old debate on which of the national field-trial organizations produced the best hunting dogs.

The field was almost evenly split between UKC and AKC trained dogs, with one NAHRA trained retriever in the mix. If one organization won over the others, then bragging rights would be held for at least one year.

In that event Super Sue, handled by Jerry Day of Atlanta, Ga., won, besting two AKC trained dogs in the finals. The win, though, didn't settle the debate. If anything, it just made things more heated.

Super Sue is the only dog in history that owns top titles in all three of the major disciplines, giving them all a piece of the bragging rights.

Payback time

Mash, a golden retriever, won the silver medal in the Retriever Trial and along the way won a little payback.

Mash, handled by Jackie Martens of Elgin, Ill., qualified for the ESPN Great Outdoor Games by finishing second in the Sporting Dog Challenge held in June in Little Rock, Ark.

In that event, two points separated Mash from Bebe, a black Labrador handled by Marty Newport.

"That was our first time to run a trial under the Great Outdoor Games format," Martens said. "We had a bunch of whistles on the blind retrieve and it cost us a lot of points. But we've come a long way since."

Mash and Martens whistle troubles, however, we're transferred to Bebe during head-to-head competition in the second round.

This time, Newport had to use the whistle to excess in guiding Bebe through the course. Martens and Mash wound up beating the pair by a total 23 points.

Matt Bush does not put much stock in the rivalry that is said to have developed between competitors from the United States and those from Australia and New Zealand. Bush acknowledges the athletes' competitiveness, but feels that there is no animosity between them.

"I don't know if there is a rivalry there," Bush said. "For example, David Bolsted, when I travel to go New Zealand, I stay with him, and when he travels here, he stays with me. Quite a few of the guys stay with me, so there's really no rivalry."

What is it about the Aussies and New Zealanders that make them so tough in the cutting sports?

"A lot of them are fourth and fifth generation axemen," Bush said. "They started out chopping maybe when they were four or five years old. When you start developing your skills at that age, and the right skills, too, it's really hard to catch up."

Bush has been to Australia four times and New Zealand once. The sport is more popular over there, but there actually is less of a financial reward for the lumberjacks there.

"It's done for the enjoyment," Bush said.

Odds and ends ... The youngest athlete at this year's Great Outdoor Games is Kaitlyn Verna, 13. She's the starting handler on the Flyball team Border Patrol. The oldest athlete is Larry Calvert, 67, of Charlo, Mont. He is a trainer in the retriever trials. His partner is an 8-year-old Labrador Retriever named Trip.

Among the 335 human participants in the outdoor games are 27 international competitors. The five foreign countries represented are: Australia, Canada, England, Japan and New Zealand. There is also a growing number of women who are participating in outdoor sports as evidenced by the 55 women participating in this year's Great Outdoor Games.

Many of the sporting events at the Great Outdoor Games are also a family affair. For example, Roland Martin, 61, and his son, Scott Martin, 25, are in the bass fishing competition. Jackie Caudle and his son, Shannon, will compete in the archery competition. Just to make it a little more easy to remember last names, Kathy Caudle is also an archery competitor. She is Jackie's wife.

There are several brother and sisters in the timber events: Fred Sheer and Judy Hoescher; Tina and Crystal Salzman; Shawn and Taylor Duffy; and Lizzie and Katie Hoeschler.

In past years, many of the timber events have been scored by hand with stop watches, but this year the judges are using an accelerometer. The instrument is similar to a seismograph that measures earthquakes. The new system measures the exact moment chopping begins and ends, with results fed directly into computers that keep score of the event.