Thursday 11 February 2010

2010 Winter Olympics

I've always thought that Ski Instructor was a money for old rope kinda job. After you have shown someone how to put on the ski's, you plonk them on top of a snowy slope and let gravity do the rest. Granted, there is a bit more to it like stopping again but that's covered in the 10 minute slot after lunch. All the hard work of the actual skiing bit is done by friction (or the lack thereof) and gravity.
Obviously some people are better at it than others and these are the ones who will be turning up in Vancouver tomorrow when the 2010 Winter Olympics get underway.
With gravity being present as a given, the only other ingredient is snow and providing the white stuff in the midst of a Canadian winter ought to be relatively straight forward. Or so you would think but due to an unseasonal mild winter in the South West of Canada, organisers are having to improvise.
They have tried airlifting snow by helicopter, hauling it by the lorryload from miles away and shooting ice and water out of a snow cannon and are confident that it everything will work out in the end and we can only hope so because how will we otherwise see what we all secretly want to see. People falling over.
We can pretend to admire the faultless lines and the way the participants glide graciously around the slalom gates but really, we are just waiting for them to lose it and come to a thundering stop in a billow of snow.
Considering we are 8 hours in front of Vancouver, us on this side of the Hemisphere should get to see quite a bit of the Games in the evening with a few late nights if we want to see the people on tea trays that is the Luge or Skeleton.
The drawback is that Germany topped the medals table last time and Australia finished above us but on the plus side Canada might enjoy hosting the Winter Olympics so much that they offer to take the 2012 Summer one off our hands. There's still time Canadians, make us an offer.

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