Sochi

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With the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi about to start, I thought now would be as good a time as any to start talking about it.

My involvement this time around is almost non-existent. At the last winter games, I was actually IN Vancouver playing an active supporting role for the Australian team. This time, even though I was offered tickets, I was not able to travel to Russia for the games, and will have to be content watching the games on TV, or livestreamed over the internet through some dodgy proxy in another country.

Being, as I am, the occasional coach of a national team, I am still in touch with the speed skating world, and many good friends of mine are competing or coaching. In light of these connections to the speed skating world, I thought it might be nice to have some kind of regular update about what was going on, at least with regards to speed skating.

In Vancouver, I sort of did this. Every day, I would write down my predictions for the next day’s events, and I would write briefly about the events which had just happened. My insights were guided by the races I had seen in the season leading up to the games (all of which I attended) and also from what I know of the skaters, many of whom I know personally. Despite this distinct informational advantage, my guesses were generally pretty awful. Apart from Sven in the 5k, Shani in the 1k, and Sablikova in the 3k and 5k, none of my predictions were correct.

So I suppose what I’m saying is that I’m asking YOU, the reader – what do you want to know? How can a person of my knowledge and experience enhance your viewing of the speed skating events at these Olympics? Would you like to hear technical discussions about how each event is raced, or more predictions, or more in-depth analyses of the athletes, or perhaps even more general discussion about the sport of speed skating. Obviously if anything controversial happens, I’ll be writing my take on the situation. Please feel free to leave a comment below or contact me directly about what you would like to hear about.

If you would like to familiarise yourself with my posts about speed skating or read through some of my older posts from the Vancouver games, just click on either the “skating” or “olympics” tags below. (you might even find the clip of me appearing randomly on dutch TV)

I’ve also created a tag “sochi2014” which you can click to bring up only the articles which I have written for this olympics.

2 Comments on Sochi

  1. Good point of view.

    I’d like to heaar analysis of each racer and their technique: What makes them efficient techniquely? And what do we know about their training?

    Maybe something about what actually happens in the village and surroundings….if you know anything about that.

    • you know, Cat, YOU could also write about that stuff, having been to Vancouver and all. I would happily include any material you submit, or have a special “guest article” if you would like to write one.

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