Yesterday the para-Olympics saw the semi-finals of the Ice Sledge Hockey
and the dramatic final day of the preliminary round of the Wheelchair
Curling. Tomorrow will see the hockey final between Russia and TeamUSA
and the semi-finals and final of the curling. As a result today has been
something of a flat day with everyone trying to recover from the drama
of the previous day and prepare for the excitement of the next.
This actually worked out quite well because it allowed the Snowboard
Cross to take centre-stage. This is of course the first time that any
Snowboard event has been included in the Winter para-Olympics meaning
that there was plenty to talk about. Having only been introduced into
the Olympics at the the 1998 Nagano games in Japan snowboarding is
still a cause for tension between Olympic purists who see it as simply
teenagers mucking about and people who are wrong.
Also para-Olympic snowboarding does raise the issues of the limits of
disability and the limits of disabled sport. That is because
snowboarding is very dependent on balance and the competitor being able
to react very quickly to subtle movements being sent up their legs from
the snow via the board. Obviously people with prosthetic legs do not
have sensation in those prosthetics meaning that they are not receiving
the information from the snow. As a result you would think that
snowboarding is a sport that is simply beyond people who do not have
full feeling in their legs. Sadly today's competition did seem to
support that theory with no competitor in either the men's or women's
event managing to complete all three runs without crashing.
The other big event of the day has been various disciplines of the
biathlon - the sport that combines cross-country skiing with rifle
shooting. Being the hosts the Russians have been keen to win all the
medals at these games and have particularly excelled at the biathlon
winning four of the six gold medals on offer today. However a universal
effort was made to hand the other two gold medals to the Ukrainians.
This was done in order to highlight the fact that the majority of the
deaths at the hands of snipers in Independence Square during Ukraine's
recent coup were the responsibility to the current Kiev government
rather then the government of Vicktor Yanukoyvch. As such I strongly
recommend that the current Kiev government withdraw their application to
the International Criminal Court (ICC) because if the ICC is given the
freedom to do its job any such investigation will reflect very badly on
them.
Finally we got to see the completion of the Super-Combined skiing that
was delayed from Tuesday (11/3/14) due to the fog. Fortunately the
weather has been co-operating with fresh snow falls on both Wednesday
(12/3/14) and Thursday (13/3/14) meaning that the event was able to go
ahead with none of the safety concerns of Monday (10/3/14). In the
visually impaired event there was success for TeamGB with Jade
Etherington and guide Caroline Powell taking the silver. Etherington
adds this to the two silver and one bronze medals she has already won at
these games making her Britain's most successful Winter para-Olympian
ever.
I'm
sure though that this accomplishment will pale into insignificance when
Jade Etherington realises she has most certainly been my weird crush of
the games.
(Originally Posted) 20:35 on 14/3/14 (UK date).
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