Although television has done a remarkable job lately in letting us see sports through the eyes of an athlete, it still helps to know what you’re looking at.
When it comes to the XX Olympic Winter Games – Feb. 10-26 in Torino, Italy – some of the sports are so completely foreign to a lot of people that most spectators really have no idea what’s happening until the athletes get to the finish line or the judges post their scores.
Take snowboarding. I’ve been riding for a decade, and have been covering competitions for more than seven years, but I’ll probably never know what it feels like to launch a frontside 1080 five metres out of a halfpipe, or completely understand why one complex trick is so much harder than another complex trick. There are so many different spins, inverted moves and grabs in the books, and the athletes are moving so fast, that I still have to ask the athletes to explain what it was I just saw.
Most judges are former athletes and know exactly what’s going on, while most spectators view Olympic sports like that horrible art cliché – they don’t know how to define it, but they know what they like.
I have no idea why one bobsled team gets to the bottom of the course faster than another team. I have no idea why one slalom skier dominates, how wax and starting positions win cross-country races, or what mogul skiers do to earn maximum points. What’s that inside hand doing when speed skaters turn a corner? And is it true figure skaters can lose points for not smiling?
CBC and, to a lesser extent, TSN will be broadcasting about 1,000 hours of Olympic coverage this year, including live events and rebroadcasts to compensate for the time differences between Italy and North America.
To help you get more out of the Games this year, we’ve put together a short guide on how to watch some of the sports you might not know that much about. And if you don’t get it this time, at least you’ll have a head start for 2010.
There are a lot of sports in the Winter Games – 15 main sports, most of which have several different sub-categories, so this guide focuses on the sports in which Whistler athletes are participating, or Whistler is hosting in 2010.
Snowboarding
When it comes to the Games, snowboarding is the new kid on the block. Its inclusion for the first time in 1998 spurred a major controversy and boycott among riders who were concerned that rigid Federation Internationale de Ski (FIS) rules would stifle creativity in the sport.
Although there are still some grumblings about the format in the halfpipe – only 12 men and 12 women qualify for the finals, with athletes getting just two runs in the qualifier and two in the finals – and the fact that national teams can only field 16 athletes, only a handful of riders still refuse to take part.
There are three snowboard disciplines – parallel giant slalom, halfpipe, and, for the first time ever, snowboardcross. Canada has qualified athletes in all three events, although we’re far better represented in halfpipe and snowboardcross.
The halfpipe is one of the most spectacular Olympic sports to watch, but also one of the most difficult to understand, unless you know what the athletes are doing and judges are looking for.
"Essentially amplitude is the number one thing people are going to notice, but what really makes you stand out is what you do with that amplitude," said Dan Raymond.
Raymond is a member of the national snowboard team, and just missed the fourth position on the men’s halfpipe team. He’s travelling to Torino as an alternate, in case any of the other qualified athletes is injured.
Raymond calls himself a "snowboard geek", because he helped to write the manuals for instructing and coaching snowboarding in Canada, and maintains the highest credentials of any instructor in the country.
According to Raymond, a successful halfpipe run has to be technical and smooth as well as big.
"Obviously if you’re spinning but are still balanced enough to grab your board and hold it, it shows you’re in control. The judges like to see that as well as smooth take-offs and smooth landings. Overall impression is really important – if you make something difficult look easy you’ll score higher," he said.
There are five judges, and the judging criteria recently changed to make judging less technical but based on the overall impression of the run. The only mandatory trick for athletes is a straight air, or a basic 180 out of the pipe, with whatever grab the rider can add to the mix.
Variety of tricks and amplitude are now the main criteria for runs – that’s why Raymond has spent years working on a run where he spins in all four directions (frontside, backside, switch frontside and switch backside).
"The judges are also looking for big combinations – not just landing big tricks, but doing it back to back to back to back, all the way to the bottom, while staying in control the whole time," explained Raymond.
He predicts that it will take a run with combinations of 900 spins (two and a half rotations) and 1080 spins to win at the Olympics, with athletes getting as much air as the conditions in the halfpipe will allow.
"I don’t expect any surprises, that anyone will invent a new trick for the Olympics although (Canadian rider Mike Michalchuk) did that in the last Games. Most of the athletes in the Olympics compete in World Cups or the U.S. Grand Prix, so everybody has a good idea what everyone else is doing," said Raymond.
"Introducing a new trick in a competition is a big risk. Most athletes have been doing the same run over and over for two years, trying to make it perfect, but that said you can’t stop someone like Xaver Hoffman (of Germany) from trying to bust out a Cab 1260."
Raymond says the U.S. men’s team is probably the strongest (they swept the podium in 2002), but doesn’t count the top Japanese riders or Finland’s Anti Autti out of the men’s competition. He also believes the Canadian riders, both men and women, are more than capable of winning medals.
"It all comes down to that day," said Raymond. "All it takes is for one little thing to go wrong on that first jump, and it throws you off for the rest of your run. Or you could have the best run ever, but make a mistake at the bottom and get marked down for it."
Although it may look like guts is the most important characteristic for a halfpipe athlete, it also takes a lot of hard work training behind the scenes.
"When we’re doing our dryland training we’re in the gym two to three hours four times a week. We also do a lot of cross-training – some riders skateboard or play soccer, but I like to mountain bike because of the whole controlling your fear aspect and the way it builds your confidence," Raymond said.
During the winter the riders will hit the slopes a minimum of five days a week, but will head out almost every single day if the snow is good. On a typical training day the athletes will get in 15 full runs in the halfpipe, but at a recent training camp on the lower halfpipe on Blackcomb the athletes were making 30 to 40 runs a day with the assistance of a snowmobile provided by Whistler-Blackcomb.
While it might seem like gravity does most of the work, Raymond says riders are out of breath by the time they get to the bottom.
"You’re on your edge trying to build momentum through the transition, and when you’re in the air all of the tricks are really high energy. Then you have to do it all again and again until you get to the bottom. By the time you finish your run, your legs are tired, and you’re always a bit wobbly and panting for air – I don’t know if it’s because we hold our breath the whole time, but sometimes it feels like it. I’m so focused I don’t even know if I’m breathing or not."
Snowboardcross is also a lot harder than it looks. Athletes spend most of their time training for fast starts, because it’s so important to have the lead, or hole shot, coming out of the first corner. It doesn’t mean you can’t get passed, says Raymond, but at least the rider with the hole shot can set the tempo and ride the line of his or her choice.
That’s why snowboardcross riders spend so much time working on their reflexes and training their muscles to hold edges at high speeds.
"Pay attention to the line that the riders take, how high are they up the berms, how close to the flags are they getting, how clean the runs are – if someone is kicking up a lot of snow in the corners then they don’t have a good line," said Raymond.
"When they hit the jumps they try to suck it up as much as they can, because they know they’re a lot faster gliding on the snow than they are flying through the air. If someone gets a lot of air, and they’re not trying to clear a set of doubles or something, then they’re not in control."
A lot of preparation also goes on behind the scenes. The national team never goes anywhere without a waxing and tuning technician, and all of the athletes work on their boards every single day. Missing the right wax by only a few degrees can make the difference between first and fourth in a heat, and only the top-two athletes move on through the brackets.
Riders also pre-ride a course several times, and can spend hours doing their inspections – they want to be able to memorize every bump, berm and jump on the course, and even plan different lines if they’re in first, second, third or fourth coming out of the first corner. The further back a rider is from the leader, the more risks the rider is willing to take to get back into passing position.
Parallel giant slalom is a bit like car racing, says Raymond – it’s important to have the best board with the best wax, but it doesn’t mean anything if the setup doesn’t match the rider’s driving style.
"It’s still an arms race in terms of the equipment," said Raymond. "The thing is that in parallel anything can happen. A tiny mistake on one turn out of 60 turns could cost you a race. Courses are so icy that waxing and board preparation is so important – no one board wins every race, so it’s really up to the rider.
"The starts are important, but all of the athletes have really good starts these days so watch how they take the first few gates – the faster athletes may have the advantage, but they’re going to have to work harder to stay in control when they head into the steep sections. A lot of it comes down to the last few gates, and who’s got the legs left to hold onto the fastest line. It’s really physical, the athletes’ legs have to be really strong. You also need good reflexes."
There are always two sets of gates in a PGS, one blue and one red, and riders race both in each round of competition. If the rider on the red course is a half second ahead after the first heat, they will get a half second head start on the blue course in the second heat.
For Whistler, snowboarding is the sport where we’re best represented. The men’s halfpipe team includes local riders Crispin Lipscomb and Justin Lamoureux, and Brad Martin plans to move here after the Games. The women’s halfpipe team includes Mercedes Nicoll, Dominique Vallée, and Maëlle Ricker, who is also competing in snowboardcross. Drew Neilson and Erin Simmons, both in snowboardcross, live in Vancouver but do most of their riding in Whistler. Same goes with Richmond’s Alexa Loo, the only Canadian woman to qualify in the PGS.
Alpine Skiing
Alpine skiing is one of the most watched events of the Games, and the downhill event is sometimes referred to as the crown jewel of the Winter Olympics with tens of thousands of spectators lining the course. Entire festivals are built around downhill races in Europe, with fans clanging ox bells, blowing whistles and generally screaming as loud as they can as the racers come down the course.
There are five Olympic disciplines – slalom, giant slalom, super giant slalom, downhill and combined. The combined sees athletes do one slalom run and one downhill run and combine the times for an overall ranking.
Canada has qualified athletes in every event except for the women’s slalom (at press time anyway – the deadline to select the national alpine team is Feb. 6). Whistler’s connection to the Olympics is through local skier Michael Janyk, who has qualified in the men’s slalom, Allison Forsyth, who once raced for the Whistler Mountain Ski Club and will be representing Canada in the giant slalom, downhill and super G, and Manuel Osborne-Paradis, who now lives in Invermere but is also a Whistler Mountain Ski Club alumnus. Osborne-Paradis, who finished 14 th in his first ever World Cup downhill last January in Chamonix, is qualified in downhill.
All ski races are won by time, with runs accurately measured to a hundredth of a second.
The downhill is the fastest alpine event with athletes reaching speeds over 130 km/h on their way to the finish line, and the men’s course at Sestriere Borgata is acknowledged for being long, fast and only moderately technical with a vertical drop of 914 metres over 3,299 metres of track.
The super G and Combined will take place in the same venue.
The technical events, slalom and giant slalom, will take place at nearby Sestriere Colle on steeper and more technical pitches.
While the basic goal of all five events is the same – to get to the finish in the least amount of time – the disciplines are very different.
Next to the downhill is the super-G, which is like the downhill in terms of speed and strategy but with slightly less vertical and a few more turns.
The giant slalom is a lot shorter and has more technical turns in a shorter space. Racers make two runs of the course, and are ranked based on their combined time.
Slalom courses are the shortest alpine events, with tight gates and quick turns, and skiers always try to get as close to the gates as possible without straddling them. There are usually between 45 and 65 gates on a women’s slalom course, and between 55 and 75 on a men’s course, and each run takes between 45 seconds and a minute.
Split second mistakes can throw a skier over a gate or off course, and there are always a lot of DNFs in big events like the Olympics where skiers go for all or nothing.
The combined event is one of the most challenging, with athletes making one run of a downhill course and one run of a slalom course, where they are tested for both speed and technical skiing abilities. In fact, the two disciplines are so different that this event typically has the fewest athletes, as most skiers choose to focus on either technical events (giant slalom and slalom) or the speed events (downhill and super G).
For more information on the national team, visit www.canski.org.
The Nordic Events
There are four major Nordic events – cross-country skiing, biathlon, ski jumping and Nordic combined, which is a strange but traditional combination of ski jumping and cross-country racing that goes back almost a hundred years.
Canada hasn’t traditionally been a contender in any of these events, but things are turning around quickly.
For example, on the cross-country side of things Beckie Scott took the gold medal in the women’s pursuit in the 2002 Olympics after the gold and silver medals were (eventually) stripped from Russian competitors for doping. Since then Scott has improved considerably and is currently ranked third overall in the World Cup cross-country standings after winning three gold medals and two silvers at Canadian World Cup events. Canada also has qualified athletes in biathlon, as well as Nordic combined and ski jumping for the first time in over a decade.
Biathlon
Biathlon combines the aerobic sport of cross-country skiing with the precision of target shooting. It might seem like a strange combination, but you try hitting a small target 50 metres away while your heart is thumping, you’re gasping for breath, and your hands are shaking from the adrenaline rush.
There are five events in biathon – individual, sprint, pursuit, mass start and relay, with varying lengths and penalty laps for missed targets for men and women. To date Canada has qualified seven biathlon athletes, three men and four women, for Torino.
While it’s difficult to explain how hard it can be for the skiers to concentrate on targets, CBC sports analyst Jack Sasseville put it best when he said, "You have to be able to go from being a rabbit to a rock in 15 seconds."
Most athletes slow down coming into the shooting range to give their heart rate a chance to settle down, and practice shooting in between breaths when their aim is the steadiest. Tests have shown that the higher the heart rate, the harder it is to hit the target. It’s not uncommon for athletes to start shooting with a heart rate of 170 beats per minute and finish shooting with a heart rate of 140 beats per minute.
In the longer races, the men’s 20 km and women’s 15 km events, competitors will go to the firing range four times, and will be assigned a one minute penalty for every missed target. In the shorter races, like the men’s 10 km and women’s 7.5 km sprint, racers have to complete an additional 150 metre penalty lap for each miss.
Because of the penalties nobody really knows who is winning in a biathlon until after the last shots are fired, and skiers can jump or drop dramatically in the standings based on a few bulls-eyes.
Ski Jumping/Nordic Combined
Ski Jumping and Nordic Combined have been off the radar screen in Canada for a long, long time, but are slowly making a comeback. In ski jumping, Six Canadian athletes have qualified for the Olympics, the first time the country has qualified any athletes since 1992. Canada will also be sending two athletes to compete in Nordic combined, for the first time since 1988.
The development teams and junior programs centred around Calgary are also the strongest they’ve been in decades, ensuring a strong future for both sports.
According to Brent Morrice, the chairman of Ski Jumping Canada, we’re only now seeing the culmination of a decade of grass roots development.
"It was about 10 years ago when we made the decision to let go some of the older athletes and really focus the high performance program essentially on a bunch of kids. They’re young, but they’ve had some good coaching, and all the work is starting to pay off," he said.
Morrice’s son Trevor recently finished fourth in the U.S. National Championships, beating out five athletes on the U.S. Olympic team – not too shabby for a 14 year old.
"I can tell the Americans were scratching their heads and wondering what was going on, and are thinking that the Canadians are getting good," said Morrice.
Ski Jumping Canada and Nordic Combined Canada were on the verge of losing their training facilities and operating budgets last year after the Calgary Olympic Development Association decided to the pull the plug on both events and refocus on sports where Canada is already a medal contender. After months of negotiations a deal was at last reached with CODA to keep the facilities open, and operational funding was actually increased through the creation of a national Own The Podium program for winter sports. The goal of OTP is to make Canada number one among nations at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.
"We now have baseline funding and we’ve set benchmarks to go with that, and if we don’t deliver results we have to ask the questions and find out why – everyone (national sports organizations) has to be accountable under the new system," said Morrice.
"I think in the ’80s and ’90s there was some frivolous spending in Canadians sports, so it makes sense to make sure national sport organizations are responsible and accountable where they spend the money… and in this case accountability means results. If you don’t improve there should be consequences."
Ski jumping is a fun sport to watch, but it’s hard for a layperson to understand why one jumper flies 120 metres while another goes five whole metres further – the run-in is the same, the jump is the same, and both look pretty similar as they fly through the air in the classic ‘V’ pose.
As usual, there’s a lot more going on than meets the eye.
"The ski jumper and coach knows as soon the jumper’s in the air, at the bat of an eye, if they’re going to go 125 metres or 100 metres. They can probably predict their distance accurately to about half a metre as soon as they hit the takeoff," said Gregor Linsig, the assistant coach for the national ski jumping team.
"It has to do with body position, in-run position, the balance point, where the legs are versus the upper body in the takeoff movement, the reaction time of the jumper and how well the quick twitch muscles are working.
"There are so many variables. There are probably six or seven little things that have to happen at once. To have a perfect jump so many things need to go right. If you mess up on one little thing, you could end up going 30 metres less than anyone else."
Although it looks dangerous – the large hill is 140 metres from the takeoff point to the end of the landing area – Linsig says that it’s probably the safest sport in the Games next to curling. Mistakes do happen, but the hills are contoured to absorb them. Besides, by the time an athlete gets to the point they’re hitting the largest jump, after thousands of practice jumps, they’re usually more concerned with form and results than with the risk they might be taking.
"I’d be surprised if we had even one crash in the entire Olympics," said Linsig. "It just doesn’t happen."
For a sport that appears to be about courage and timing, jumping is also physically demanding. Most athletes will train jumps about six days per week, and spend up to another three hours per week in the gym doing dryland training to increase strength, balance and reflexes.
"Ski jumpers have the weirdest bodies," Linsig said. "They try to be as light as they can, but they have the most powerful legs you’ll ever see. They can jump 72 inches vertical from a standing position, with an upper body that’s essentially like a skeleton. They’re very powerful and in very good shape."
A few years ago jumpers were going to such lengths to shed weight that new rules were put into place that stipulate exactly how much jumpers need to weigh for a particular height. If a jumper comes in even a pound too light they are not allowed to compete.
"It’s tough on the athletes. How do you tell a 14-year-old they have to gain two pounds or lose two pounds?" said Linsig.
"We have a saying in the sport – fat don’t fly."
There are three ski jump competitions. The "normal hill" venue measures 106 metres from the takeoff point to the end of the landing area. The K Point, which is used to determine a jumper’s score, is at 95 metres.
The "large hill" venue is 140 metres from the take-off point to the end of the landing area, with a K Point at 125 metres.
There is also a team event, where teams of four make two jumps per member on the large hill, and scores are added up to determine the overall winners.
A Nordic combined contest includes elements of both cross-country skiing and ski jumping, and there are three categories – individual, sprint and team. The athletes start out by making two jumps on the normal hill, the results of which determine the start order for the cross-country race.
The individual event is 15 km and the sprint 7.5 km, while each member of a team of four races a 7.5 km loop. As in ski jumping there is no women’s category for Nordic combined.
For more on the sports and Canadian athletes, visit www.skijumpingcanada.com, www.nordiccombinedcanada.com
The Sliding Sports – Bobsled, Luge and Skeleton
The Bobsled has been in the Olympics since 1928, but has been a competitive event since the late 1800s when Swiss aristocrats used to barrel down straight courses in mountain villages in giant sleds of their own design. In fact, the reason it’s called bobsled is because in the early days team members would attempt to make the sled go faster by bobbing up and down in their seats. It didn’t take long for the concept of aerodynamics to take over, and the sleds evolved from wood to metal, and from metal to fiberglass, while the runners, turning systems and braking systems got more and more advanced over succeeding generations.
There are about five bobsled manufacturers around the world, and while the basic design is similar, there are differences that the athletes can spot.
Canada has five 2005 World Championship medals in the sliding sports, as well as 100 international medals in the four years since the 2002 Olympic Winter Games. Canadian skeleton athletes are going into Torino as favourites, and there are solid Canadian medal contenders in luge and bobsled.
Bobsled
There are three bobsled competitions – two-man, four-man and two-woman, and the top teams reach speeds over 130 km/h an hour on their way to the bottom.
Because the quality of ice on the course does change from run to run, and all teams make four runs of the course over two days to get an overall time, the teams are re-seeded after every run to even things up. As a result, teams can head into the final run separated by just a few hundredths of a second.
All bobsled teams have a driver and a brakeman, and sometimes two other members who work together to help push the sled at the start. While the driver may have the hardest job after that, team members still have to focus to keep their weight balanced and head in line with the driver – easier said than done.
"Sometimes it can be that the smoothest team is the slowest, while the fastest team has a rough ride through the first turns – it’s deceiving," said Christina Smith, who competed for the Canadian women’s bobsled team in 2002 along with fellow Calgarian Paula McKenzie.
"There are some obvious things to look for. If the sled sideslips for instance, goes too high on a wall and slips down, that can cost you some time. If the driver is not settled or the brakeman isn’t settled, if you’re bumping the walls, if the push bars are not locked down, those things can really slow you down."
According to Smith the runners on the bottom of a bobsled are not sharpened like ice skates, but are rounded – if you get too high up a wall, or over-adjust coming out of a turn into a straight section, the sled could drift side to side and bump into the walls. A good driver doesn’t try to steer the sled, but makes small corrections to keep the sled on the fastest line.
"The only spots to gain speed, other than the start, are in the corners so you have to hit these pressure areas to accelerate with more speed from the corners," said Smith.
Those pressure spots, where the most G-force is bearing down on the sled, are also the only time that team members can readjust their positions without disrupting the path of the sled.
The G-force is so great that it’s a struggle to keep your head up and in line with the head in front of you. Only planes and a few roller coasters can simulate the kind of G-force experienced in a bobsled course.
"I have a saying that if you’re not flexible at the top of the course, you will be by the time you get to the bottom – the pressure is just extreme," said Smith.
Teams are also forbidden from using any lubricants or warming up runners to make them glide faster – officials will actually measure the temperature of the runners to ensure they’re within four degrees Celsius of the air temperature.
For Smith, being a bobsled athlete meant six days of dryland training a week during the summer, including weight training, sprinting, plyometrics, and more. That also means therapy, including physiotherapy and visits to the chiropractor, and mental training – you can’t afford to be distracted when you’re flying down an icy course at 130 km/h with a thin layer of fiberglass between you and certain injury.
Smith has crashed a few times in her career, which she says is par for the course for most athletes.
"The ultimate thing is that you’re in an object that’s out of control, trying to control it only as much as you need to to find the fastest line. You can’t put the brakes on until you get to the finish, so when a crash occurs you’re always close to the edge and pushing your limits," she said. "If you misjudge or the sled can’t handle, it’s over, and it happens so fast.
"There’s this really loud scraping sound and you can smell the fiberglass burning. People come away with ice burns from the friction, or injure their heads. You have no concept of what way is up, or what corner you’re at, but you might take a second to hope that your brakeman is okay."
Luge
Luge is primarily an individual sport but there is a doubles category. It’s similar to bobsled, but athletes start from the sitting position, and lay backwards on an open sled on their way down the course. While bobsleds use aerodynamic cowlings (shells) to shed air, lugers adjust their body position to be as aerodynamic as possible. They also steer their sleds, but it’s harder to aim from flat on your back – crashes do happen and they’re never pretty.
Skeleton
Skeleton is the newest sliding discipline in the Games. The equipment is similar to the luge, but athletes start on their knees and slide down the course face down and head first.
Times are slightly faster than luge, but the athletes have more control and a better field of vision.
The Italian sliding centre at Cesana is considered one of the most advanced in the world, and had a price tag of $93 million U.S. It has 19 curves, and drops a modest 117 metres over 1.43 km.
For more information visit /www.bobsleigh.ca, www.bobsled.ca, www.luge.ca
For more perspectives on Olympics sports, and how to watch them, visit the following websites.
CBC’s Torino 2006 Coverage – www.cbc.ca/olympics
Canadian Olympic Committee – www.olympic.ca
TSN’s Olympic Coverage –
