50 Ways of Sliding

50 Ways of Sliding – The Winter Olympics

Last week I had a bad cold. There's nothing much good one can say about a bad cold except maybe that it's not 'flu. A bad cold usually means being not sick enough to stay in bed but not fit enough to do much else. While over the counter remedies provide little relief this particular cold coincided with the Winter Olympics and that has provided plenty of distraction.
The Winter Olympics is a two week long festival of sliding on skis, skates, snowboards or in streamlined bath tubs. Some of the sliding is punctuated by jumping, shooting or even sweeping while many events involve quite a lot of falling over – well, snow and ice are very slippery substances. Several countries or groups of countries have their own favourite ways of slipping and sliding. In those countries these sports are hugely popular whilst outsiders may well find them confusing, eccentric or just plain boring.

Here in The Netherlands the most popular winter sport is speed skating, especially the 'long-track' version. Only football gets more coverage than long-track speed skating in the media. Why the Dutch are so enthusiastic about a sport that the rest of the world find only slightly more interesting than watching grass grow is a mystery but then when you consider that the English can get excited about cricket and darts I guess anything is possible! Once the winter season gets started the newspapers are full of predictions and speculation about the upcoming international skating tournaments. Even more so in an Olympic year. Every slip or stagger is analysed, every comment dissected and every conflict between trainers, skaters, sponsors and the skating authorities widely reported and heatedly debated. The fact that virtually nobody in the rest of the world cares, doesn't matter.

The Netherlands had 33 participants in the Winter Olympics only four were not skaters.

The Dutch television had seven extra cameras in the long track skating arena, I'm sure other national TV stations did the same for their favourite sports. The result was some of the best television I have seen in a long time. I'm not about to bore you with the details of the tournament. The sport was exciting enough for the insiders, yes I'm a convert. As with any sport there were winners and losers, come-backs and breakthroughs. There were tears of joy, frustration, disappointment and relief not only from the athletes, but also from their families, friends and supporters. There was enough drama in between, around and during the races for a whole TV series but packed into just two weeks and registered by some stunning creative and, surprisingly respectful, camera work. Some pictures I'm sure will stick in my memory longer than the performances. Like when one of the most successful Dutch female skaters ever, dubbed by the media 'The Queen of the Ice', flung herself into the arms of the real King of The Netherlands after she had won yet another gold medal. Some of the best pictures came from the neighbouring ice arena. From the less popular, less predictable, more international and more dynamic short-track tournament. In one shot the cameras captured the delighted antics of the Dutch women' s relay team who, having failed to reach the final, surprisingly won bronze when two of the finalists were disqualified together with the frustration and disappointment on the face of their reserve team mate who for the second time in her career got to the Olympics but didn't get to skate! Then right at the end of the tournament a bouncy, hyper-enthusiastic twenty year old screamed full into the camera that everything was 'fuckin' fantastic' and 'fuckin' fabulous' immediately after winning an unexpected but fully deserved individual gold medal … contrasting with maybe my favourite moment: away from the skating arena a Czech snow boarder also took part in the super-G, a downhill skiing event, and surprisingly won it. “There must be some mistake” she shyly stammered in disbelief when she was approached by the TV cameras.

Ah well – it's all over now, except for some of the competitors appearing on talk shows and my cold. Luckily this coming weekend there are plenty more distractions on the television including the World Championship indoor athletics in Great Britain. Athletics is one of the sports I enjoy watching most but, to be honest, what I would really love to see this time is a successful British athlete throwing his arms around the Queen and for her to give him a great big hug in return, well wouldn't you? 

Unfortunately it's not going to happen-  she probably won't even be there..........