The Crash Years

Imagine being in the lead in the Winter Olympic two-man bobsled competition.  Imagine almost making it to the finish line after the second run, practically inches - or, in the case of the Olympics, centimeters - away from the end.  Then you crash, and you blow it.

Well, Christian Poser and Nico Walther of Germany did all of that . . . except for the "blowing it" part.  Just as they neared the finish line in PyeongChang, their sled turned over and made its way to the end of the track on its side, its runnings protruding into the air.  Poser and Walther still made it over the line in first place.    

They're actually the ones to beat for a gold medal.

Also in competition are teams from Canada and - of course - Latvia, home of the great Janis Kipurs (you knew I was going to bring that name up eventually).  The Americans?  Not so much, but their problems may be more psychological than athletic.  Steven Holcomb, the American champion bobsledder who won a gold medal in the four-man competition at the 2010 Winter Games, died in May 2017 of a combination of alcohol and opioids, and his death still seems to have an effect on the team; the NBC commentators have even suggested a mental block holding back the U.S. competitors.  Kudos to the Americans for continuing and carrying on.  It wouldn't be a cliché to say that Holcomb would have wanted it that way, but even if it is, clichés aren't the same as lies. 

Let the Games End

Tonight is the closing ceremony at the Vancouver Winter Olympics. And, in case you didn't hear about the gold medal men's hockey game . . . Canada won.

In overtime.

I'd like to thank the following people who inspired me in covering these Winter Games: Calixa Lavallée, Sir Adolphe-Basile Routhier, and Robert Stanley Weir, for writing the stirring words and music for the Canadian national anthem, which I got to hear a lot; ice dancer Tanith Belbin, for being hot; halfpipe snowboarder Shaun White, for simply being on fire; the U.S. ski team, for winning all those medals, particularly in Nordic combined, and sticking it to the Austrians, but especially: Julia Mancuso, for also being hot, and Lindsey Vonn, for being hot and blonde.

Special gratitude goes to the Canadian hydraulics engineers who screwed up that fourth arm of the indoor cauldron at the opening ceremony, if only to prove that Americans aren't the only ones who screw up with things like this; the Vancouver organizing committee, for not thinking to invite Chilliwack to play at either the opening or closing ceremony, and; the United States Olympic Committee, for being too busy being dysfunctional and arrogant to interfere with their own athletes. Special thanks go also to the former Soviet republics of Estonia and Kazakhstan, the only countries to rank lower in the medal count than the United Kingdom, so my four British friends don't have to be completely humiliated by the British presence in, ironically, British Columbia.

My friend Mackenzie Reide, who is from Vancouver but did not go home to watch the Games in person so she could continue pursuing her writing career in New York, hopefully read some of this blog and felt like she was home as a result. I dedicate this Winter Olympics commentary to you, Mackenzie.

Finally, a heartfelt and completely irrelevant and irreverent tip of the hat to Janis Kipurs . . .

. . . the aforementioned Latvian bobsledder who competed for the Soviet Union in 1984 and 1988, who in 1988 won the gold medal in two-man bobsledding and bronze in the four-man competition and provided me with such a wonderful name to whimsically riff off, and who, in 1846, invented the sewing machine. :-D ;-)

By the way, who won curling? :-D

On to Sochi in 2014.

All Aboard The Night Train!

Oh, this is sweet . . ..

The four-man bobsled team United States 1, whose sled is known as the "Night Train," made history today by speeding to an Olympic gold medal in Vancouver - the first American gold medal in the four-man bobsled event since 1948. Steven Holcomb was the driver, supported by Steve Mesler, Curt Tomasevicz and Justin Olsen. They set the pace in the first of four runs and never looked back. Their final margin of time on the fastest sled track ever built was .38 of a second.

To give you an idea of how significant this is, American bobsledders had long been considered more of a novelty than the Jamaican bobsled team.

The Night Train crew beat a German sled piloted by the esteemed Andre Lange, a friend of Holcomb's. Now the Americans can take their places among great Olympic bobsledders such as Lange, Peter Kirby of Canada, Eugenio Monti of Italy, Jean Wicki of Switzerland, and the Latvian bobsledder Janis Kipurs.

I remember Janis Kipurs, a member of the Soviet team in the 1980s, very well, largely because of his name - pronounced "YON-is KIP-ers." I like saying it over and over - "YON-is KIP-ers." "YON-is KIP-ers." "YON-is KIP-ers." :-D

Of course, Steven Holcomb, Steve Mesler, Curt Tomasevicz and Justin Olsen are four more names worth repeating. :-)